Making an ally of fear
by RubixSoul
Summary: RoTG drabbles, prompts welcome! This is playing around with the 'If Pitch made nice' factor after the movie, much like MiraEyeteeth's 'A home for fear' (seriously check that out). First three or so chapters are just building up so afterwards I can unleash plot bunny hell. May contain one or two chaps with OCs playing around, but you can skip those easily.
1. Return

The guilt had been gnawing at him for _months_ and was close to driving him insane. Ever since he saw Pitch Black get dragged into the hole under the old bed that used to be the entrance to his lair, clawing at the ground, screaming, reaching out to _them_, to_ him_, he'd been feeling terrible. The other Guardians were fine, they seemed to be at least. He thought he'd seen Bunny flinch when Jamie walked through Pitch. Maybe he'd been reminded of the few days he himself had been unable to interact with the children he'd been protecting for so long, when he wasn't believed in. But Aster probably hated him the most, considering Pitch _was _responsible for that in the first place. Tooth was _still_ fussing over some of her faeries while North acted as though nothing had happened. Sandy seemed a little sad, even disappointed, after Pitch was gone but his job kept him preoccupied. All their jobs kept them from thinking so much on it, leaving Jack the only one that'd think, that'd regretted every once in a while in the silent ride home with the Wind.

Finally, he stopped halfway to the Pole where North had given him a place to stay. "Wind… take me... _home_" He whispered softly before the wind changed direction and brought him to the familiar town of Burgess, and the lake where his 'life' as a spirit started. _It's just checking up on the place. Of course I missed this lake… And it wouldn't be wrong of me to just happen to pass by where the bed was…_

The Guardian glided down slowly and through the forest. He could feel memories coming back, of him playing around with his sister and cousins, of the time he played hero and tried to find the sheep that had scattered when his village's sheepherder was attacked by wolves, of almost dieing to the same wolves, of the walk to the lake the fateful day of his death. But he also remembered rising out of the water, of watching kids of Burgess skate on the lake, and , he cringed a little, when he jumped into Pitch's lair after hearing his sister's voice and finally, when he stood with the Guardians here and watched the Boogeyman get dragged away. He'd arrived. This was where the broken bed had been, it was still not there, and the entrance wasn't either. _Of course,_ he snorted a little to himself, _Pitch was gone, dragged off into the darkness like he did with kids in all those stories._ Jack couldn't understand **why **he almost _wished_ that the entrance would be there.

Jack should've been glad, like the others, like the kids, but he could only chalk it up to how similar they were, it was so much easier for Jack to empathise with Pitch. Jack admitted that he'd gotten depressed many times during the 300 years he spent alone, ignored. Sure, he always got better, telling himself nothing would change if he moped. But Pitch was an old enemy of the other Guardians, whom existed long before he was born! He'd probably been alone, not believed in, since he was banished, and was probably alone before the Dark Ages as well! That was thousands of years! Jack couldn't blame him for what he did. Behind it all, Pitch couldn't control what he needed to exist, didn't control what he _was_. Jack was lucky that he didn't go down the same path and he'd come close to snapping after 300 years. He sighed, no use mulling over the past, Pitch was gone.

With that thought he shot back into the air and continued on to the Pole. But the Wind was acting strange, it didn't listen to him. He never truly controlled the Wind, it was more his friend, his ally. But today it was fighting back, urging him away from the Pole. " What is _**wrong**_ with you today!?" He struggled, spinning a few times, trying to right himself. "HeeeEEEEY!" With a giant gust of wind he span head over heels in the air, being catapulted South, to Antarctica.

Jack finally righted himself where the ocean ended and Antarctica started. Only to see something that he dreaded with all his heart. Towering above the cliffs was the monument created when pure Cold Frost and Pitch Black clashed. It glistened impressively and got larger as Jack got closer. He'd been so entranced by it he didn't have time to react when the Wind threw him at its base. Digging himself out of the snow he looked up at the _thing_. "Wind! Bring be back to the Pole!" When he wasn't lifted into the air he yelled out again. "I meant the NORTH POLE!" Still, no answer. With a huff he got up and trudged his way to the base of the giant spike. He decided to head to where the curve of it was and was startled to find a hole there. "…What?" _It couldn't be, could it? It was here, where Pitch probably figured no one would search. The Guardians didn't know where their meeting had taken place, and he didn't like this place at all, the memories of his encounter with Pitch repulsed him. _Jack could almost smile. _Pitch was clever, no one could deny that. _With a last glance around, Jack tightened his grip on his staff before jumping down, much like the first time he entered Pitch's lair.

Underground he flinched at every movement, at every shadow, even if it was his own. Finally the tunnel led to the main chamber and he stuck to the side of the tunnel to peer out at the cavern. The entrance tunnel was pretty high up and on the far side of the cavern was the throne and the metal globe, shining brightly. As he stepped out to look at it all, his foot brushed against some pebbles, sending them tumbling down into the main cavern. He froze and the hair on the back of his neck stood when he heard a far off whinny. "Oh boy…" He gripped his staff even tighter, knuckles turning white as blue sparks flared off the staff. Soon he saw a herd of Nightmares coming straight at him which he shot at quickly in short bursts of ice. After the first three fell the others hung back and flew around the cages suspended from the ceiling, staring at him. _This was weird_, the Nightmares were cunning, but they were still beasts, they should have lunged at him. Instead he watched them pace some more in the air before one threw its head back to screech out before it ran off, the others following. _That… That was a __**tactical retreat**_. Jack let it sink in slowly before he grinned. _That was the work of Pitch! He was alive! _Jack couldn't stop himself from being glad and gave up questioning himself, just relishing the utter joy. He whooped a little and followed the Nightmares, swerving through the tunnels.

Finally he spotted giant ebony doors, gold embedded in spirals and sharp sweeping arrows around the borders and handles. They slammed shut just as Jack rounded the corner and he slowed down and crept towards it. When he got to the door he could hear the whinnying inside quiet. He reached for the door handle but paused. _What could be on the other side? For all I know, Pitch probably has some sort of guillotine blade ready to come down on me._ Jack shrugged it off, telling himself he'd just have to be ready for anything and turned the handle, pushing the door open slightly. _The Nightmares had come __**here**__, most likely to tell Pitch, what was the use in sneaking around, Pitch must know he'd been right behind the mares. _With that he opened the door wide to see Pitch rising from an armchair, leaning on it and glaring at him, eyes ablaze. The Nightmares were lined up on both sides, creating a neat path straight to Pitch.

"What are you doing here _Guardian_", The last word was growled low and Jack backed up when another Nightmare screeched, trotting over to Pitch, who gripped a rein that appeared. Jack thought Pitch would've refused any sort of help but it seemed Pitch really _had_ been beaten. "Leave or I will _make_ you _leave_," That was a barely audible hiss from Pitch and Jack looked back at him to see him cough softly.

"I doubt you can, Pitch" _That was bad, _Jack winced,_ I shouldn't have said that… If only I would __**think**__ before spouting nonsense like that! _He could see Pitch flex his fist around the reins, growling, but he could see he was nervous, strangely the Nightmares didn't seem to lunge for it. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean that…"

"Oh you meant that in a _nice_ way. Apologies but it didn't seem so." Jack bowed his head a little.

"No, I'm sorry!" The winter spirit looked up, straight into the Boogeyman's eyes. "Pitch.." he reached out to him, like you would to a doe. "Are you… okay?" Pitch flinched and backed away a step, causing Jack to quickly pull his hand back, keeping the fist close to his chest and loosened his grip on his staff, trying to seem unthreatening.

"Leave."

"Pitch… You-"

"**LEAVE**" Jack ducked when a Nightmare's jaws snapped at his ear.

"Pitch… You" Jack _had_ to say it, Pitch had to see! "You need help Pitch, come with me, the others can help you!" He watched Pitch for a second before he said softly. "Please"

"Leave, Guardian. Do not return, ever." Jack's eyes softened before the Nightmares slammed their hooves on the ground, screeching. Jack was going to say more but decided against it, leaving.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay erm, ah fk it. HEYLO ALL. This is gonna be a kind of drabble thing, all those ridiculous 'If Pitch made nice' little ideas in my head will get thrown now I'm setting up the part where he makes nice, but after that, ALL HELL IS RELEASED.

**_I'm accepting prompts and the like._**

Random AUs I come up with go here too, so this is basically the nursery for them plot bunnies, with an adult watching over them. I loved MiraEyeteeth's "A Home for Fear" so you could say this entire thing is dedicated to her :D Keep in mind for most of my stories I don't follow the books for Pitch's backstory, not because I don't like the books, I've never read them and I don't want to disgrace it. But you can take his backstory as something similar I suppose, a HUMAN general that was killed by the enemy side. (Suddenly thinking about jabberjays... OOOOH CROSSOVER IDEA)


	2. Return (2)

When Jack reached the surface he felt the Wind swirl around him, like a cat curling around its owner's legs to show affection. "Oh _now_ you're here." He felt the Wind slow, as if remorseful. He laughed a little. "I forgive you" The Wind picked up again, ruffling his hair, making him laugh more. "C'mon, let's get to the Pole, the meeting is gonna start soon and we can't be late again." The wind pushed him back a little, jokingly, as if to say, _Yea we can! _"No we can't, c'mon!" He ran and jumped off the cliff, falling for a while before the Wind swept him up, letting him twirl around as he flew further away from Antarctica, from Pitch, from the ugly monument of Ice and Darkness.

After a while, Jack saw the lights of the Pole after clearing the last mountain ridge. He sighed a little, thinking, before whispering to the Wind. "Why'd you bring me there, eh?" He could almost hear the Wind say, _sorry, it had to be done, you'll understand soon. _He almost snorted, sometimes his friend was as cryptic as Manny. He landed at the entrance and walked up to the yetis situated there. "Hey Phil!" Phil still looked reluctant to open the doors for him, due to 300 years of having to do the opposite, but Jack couldn't really blame him. "Thanks Phil, I'll get you some eggnog when I come out!" He laughed at the shocked look Phil had and flew in, around the globe and landing at the platform in front of North's office.

"Jack! There you are!" North was already there with the others, throwing his hands up like he was going to hug him.

"Hey North, Bunny, Tooth, Sandy" Jack smiled at them. After all these months he still couldn't help but revel in the feeling of _belonging_, of having a _family_.

"Hi Jack!" Tooth greeted him with the customary teeth check-up.

"Took you long enough, mate. We were gonna start without ye." Bunny, impatient as usual.

"Tooth, hands out of mouth" Tooth backed off with a sorry and they went inside North's office, sitting down. Baby Tooth flew up to Jack, chirping quickly in short bursts. He laughed and let her sit on his shoulder.

"So, shall we begin?" North asked before they all nodded.

"I'll start! The kids are believing in me again, almost as many as before. All my faeries are doing well and we're working on more space for all the teeth, as well as the tower for our and other spirits' teeth. So if anyone like Jack ever comes along, we'll be ready to help." Tooth reported happily, winking at Jack at the last part.

"The googies are doing fine, there'll be more than enough for Easter and the paint isn't going to run dry anytime soon." Aster finished quickly, dabbing at the egg he held in his paw with the brush he always brought around with him.

Sandy flashed a few pictures quickly but they all caught the drift. Some children were still having dreamless sleep but the majority of them were having sweet dreams as they should.

"Jack?" Jack looked up and motioned at North. "You go first, North."

"Very well. Elves have gotten trouble as usual, making yetis angry and messing with toys, but all is well otherwise."

"Are you sure, North? I could get some of the girls to help or watch the elves."

"No need Toothiana, we can take care of it." North reassured her, watching her seat back down before looking at Jack. "So Jack, you? How are the snowball fights and kids doing?"

"You're forgetting, North, winter's just about over, I'm just chilling. As for the kids, like you all said they're getting better definitely. Those ice skating rinks are bugging me though." The others nodded, satisfied, as Jack chewed at his bottom lip. Sandy seemed to notice and they all heard the soft tinkling sounds as he shot off a question, _what's the matter? Something wrong, Jack?_

Now they were all looking at him. Jack breathed deep before letting it out in a sigh. "I don't know how to say this, guys…" He could see they were worried that something was wrong and he hated making them worry. "But please, please just hear me out okay?"

"Why, it's something bad, ain't it?" The Easter Bunny sat up a little straighter.

"Y-yea… Pitch is still alive." He heard them gasp before he held up his hands. "But he's weak, _really_ weak. He couldn't even stand properly." It felt wrong to just blurt out Pitch's weakened state and all his problems but he needed to be truthful, to get their trust.

"Then what are we waiting for, let's make sure he _**stays**_ gone!" Bunny was already up, hyped to end it all. This was exactly what Jack didn't want.

"Bunny! Stay down, let Jack finish." Jack was grateful for North and watched Bunny settle down, grumbling. "Now, Jack, how did you know all this?"

"I- I went back to Overland Spring, I was coming here but I just wanted to check… I was curious. The entrance to Pitch's lair wasn't there, not after last time so I just thought he was gone forever. But then when I decided to continue over here Wind wouldn't bring me here, I kept getting pushed to Antarctica…" Jack rubbed the back of his neck, how was he supposed to explain the spike of black ice? "Guys, I need to tell you something first, about that time when I lost Baby Tooth. Baby Tooth did you ever tell them?" A small chirp with her furiously shaking her head answered him. "Okay. Erm. After I lost Baby Tooth, after I left you guys", he saw Bunny shuffle his feet a little, "I went to Antarctica. It's always been a place I go to, for some quiet… Pitch was there." He was surprised not have been interrupted so far but they were all paying rapt attention. "He… He tried to get me to join him, I didn't, obviously! I got mad, I shot at him, but he was going on about how much alike we were, being ignored for so long." He looked up at them. "I'm fine by the way, I'm leaving that behind so _please_ just leave it. Anyways, he was angry, of course but he wanted to trade my staff for Baby Tooth. He lied of course, snapped my staff and left me there with Baby Tooth… I left after I fixed my staff."

"When we fought we created a weird… _thing_. All ice and blacksand, he said how nothing goes together better than cold and dark… Anyways, that thing is still there and I found the new entrance there. He probably thought I'd never go there, I thought that too. I went in earlier and I found some Nightmares."

"Nightmares?! I thought they were all gone! Oh no, what about the children!?" Tooth was flitting about now, and they had to calm her down.

"That's what we thought of Pitch, remember?" Jack reminded her. "I followed them and found Pitch, he seemed to have them under control. He was _scared_ guys, he was in a pretty bad shape, some Nightmare had to help him stand."

"So why didn't you finish him there and then?" Bunny was pissed to say the least, fists clenching.

"You guys needed to know first, I didn't want to do anything stupid!"

"Okay then we can go now!" Tooth seemed to agree with Bunny and North, and Sandy was contemplating.

"No!" They all stared at him.

"And why's that, eh?"

"Because he doesn't deserve it!" He really couldn't go a day without blurting something out, could he? Before they could ask he decided to just go with it. "You guys have never been not believed in, maybe a few days at most, but never for centuries. From what I've heard Pitch has been like that for at least a thousand years! I would've snapped if Manny didn't make me a Guardian when he did." He stopped there, he couldn't think of anything else and sighed. "Guys, he doesn't deserve it, not anymore. You already saw what's happened, it's over for him… Can't we just leave him alone?"

They were thinking it over and Sandy seemed to agree with Jack, but he knew what he really wanted. "Can't we… Can't we help him?" **That **startled them. Everything after was all, _Why should we do that?! We should leave him where he is!_

"What if it was me?!" This was the best way to convinve them, it wasn't fair, using the guilt they had for ignoring him so long. _Maybe I'm more like Pitch than I thought_, Jack thought grimly. "Like I said I would've snapped sooner or later, what if I did something like what he did? Would you do what you did? Right here, right now,look at me, what if I did snap? If you'd left me to die, when this is what I could be." He knew their answer was sadly yes but now they were considering Pitch.

"S-say we do help him, how do we help him and make sure he doesn't come after us?" Even Bunny was almost convinced.

"We trust him. I know, I know, but we really have to. Sure we can keep a watch on him but maybe, maybe he won't try anything on us anymore. As for how we help him, well, Halloween's next month, right?"

"What you mean let him have free rein? Let him get enough power to wipe us out? Let him scare all the kids?"

"It's Halloween, guys, kids are asking to be scared…" _Oh gods, he was sounding like Pitch. Wait he was defending __**Pitch**__. _" We can work something out but… we need him to trust us first…"

It was hard, and his own confidence slipped at times but after a while they all agreed to give it a try. Jack was ecstatic. It was only then they realized how late it was, the meeting had really dragged on. But there was one last question.

"Who'll reach out to him?" Sandy was going to volunteer before Jack spoke up.

"It's my idea, and like he said, we're kinda the same."

"You are sure, Jack?" North asked and the others were looking at him, ready to take his place.

"Yes," Jack was determined, he would help Pitch, for sure. He'd make up for letting him be dragged off.

"Ven we finish and use plan tomorrow, for now, sleep! Many guest rooms, all welcome to use." North opened the door to his office and motioned at them to exit.

"You're sure we aren't intruding? I can always just go back to the Palace…" Toothiana was rubbing her forearm but North just led them to the East wing.

"Iz all right! Jack?" Jack nodded and led them all to the guestrooms, Baby Tooth still perched on his shoulders, after everyone settled down he plopped down on his own bed, dozing off quickly, Baby Tooth beside him on the pillow, wings twitching.

* * *

><p>AN: How dafuq does North's accent work? How does all the accents work XD

No offense to anyone but me staying in my country all the time has this downside lol, also this is around the start of October, I live pretty close to the Equator so I have no idea how snow works (or any kind of season), it'd be good if someone could get ma some sort of reference calendar for seasons XD

I'm probably being an idiot by posting two chapters at one go, I have the third one written but I wanna see how this is received, lol.

Oh dear, oh dear, the Holidays are gonna end soon ;_;


	3. Return (3)

Baby Tooth woke up when her mother did and chirped softly before sitting up to rub at her eyes, blinking away the sleep. She looked up to see Jack still asleep so she nudged him a little, squeaking when he grumbled and turned over. Huffing she flew out of the room to find her mother chatting with Bunny as they walked. She chirped loudly and caught up with her and her sisters. After that it was off to work, rushing back to the Palace to gather her squad to fly out to Indonesia.

When Jack and North finally woke up the Guardians gathered together on the platform in front of the globe. "So, Jack, how you make Pitch listen?" North finally asked.

"I'll tell him we want to help, he'll be stubborn, duh, but when I saw him… He didn't really try so hard to hide his problem. He could've sent me running with the Nightmares… It's like he doesn't care anymore." Jack shrugged. "I'll figure something out, if anything happens I'll get out as quick as I can, alright?"

"Then we vish you luck, Jack." North said happily, ignoring Bunny's muttering, _this is a bad idea, a bad, bad idea._

"You're a great person for doing this, Jack. If anyone can get Pitch to become better, it'd be you" Tooth held his hand and smiled at him before letting go, mini faeries staring dreamily when he smiled back. Jack quickly shut his mouth before they tried to poke and prod at his teeth, backing a bit.

"Thanks guys, I'll try my best. Sandy?" Sandy looked over, dropping his eggnog before floating to him, nodding. Sandy was to be his backup if anything went wrong.

* * *

><p>They arrived fairly quickly, Jack jumping out of the sand airplane and stood at the edge of the hole, he was surprised Pitch hadn't moved it, looking over to Sandy he saw him watching grains of dreamsand get blown away by the Arctic wind. "Sandy, you can stay under here, it'll block the wind." Sandy nodded in thanks and floated above the hole. Jack looked up at him one last time and shrugged before jumping in, landing on his feet and his left arm, holding his staff with his right. He got up and walked slowly to the main chamber, listening out for any sound. Walking through the tunnels that twisted and turned left and right, he finally saw the big ebony doors and headed for it. It was then he saw something in the corner of his eye and spun around, finding nothing. He couldn't trust anything though, this was how Pitch <em>was<em>. The strange movement always in the corner of your eye. But he couldn't hope to catch Pitch, this was his element. Besides, that was not what he was here for, he was here to talk. With that, he reached out for the gold doorhandle and turned it, stepping into the library, looking around. Pitch was still there, where he'd been the last time, still on the armchair. He was glaring at him now, but even _that_ felt weak, half-hearted.

"What are you doing here. I told you to never return," The Boogeyman snarled, getting up, fist clenching.

"I'm not here to fight you, Pitch, please." Jack held his hands up calmly, trying to show he wasn't trying to threaten him.

"Really," Pitch sneered. "Then why is Sanderson up on the surface?"

"Sander- Sandy? Oh... oh. Erm." Jack backed up again. "I- I erm, just-"

"Enough, go. Now." Pitch was getting close to him now, gaining confidence probably from Jack's anxiousness.

"I came here to talk alright!?" Jack yelled a little and quickly shut his mouth, watching Pitch before continuing gently. "I- no- _We_ want to help you, Pitch. We don't want you to live like… like _this_." Jack bit his lip, motioning at him.

"You didn't seem to think that when you let the Nightmares bring me here," Jack flinched a little at the growl and guilt before standing straight, staring straight into Pitch's eyes. "No, and I'm sorry for that. I want to help now, I want to make up for it."

Pitch raised a brow, "You said 'I', the Guardians aren't as keen on your little idea as you are, are they?" Jack didn't know what to say so he nodded sadly. "But they'll still help, Pitch, you need to let us help you!"

"And how do you wish to do that? My very nature does not agree with you or your Guardians, you said it yourself." Jack could see _hurt_ flicker in Pitch's eyes, he still felt that Jack had betrayed him. "How are you to help me when I instil fear in children and feed off of it?"

"Halloween's coming up soon…" Jack said with a little grin.

"Halloween?"

"What you never heard of Halloween?"

"Please, I created Halloween with the other spirits. They never got my look right." _Was Pitch, __**bragging**__? He was relaxing now._ "I'm surprised the other Guardians would agree to your plan, or have you run this part by them?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Ever since your _Guardians_ came along they've supressed me on Halloween, or did they never tell you that?" Pitch sneered at him, laughing when Jack's silence confirmed it. "They really don't trust you as much as you believe, boy. My offer still stands."

"And my answer is still the same. Now are you going to answer my question? Will you let us help you?"

Pitch was silent, thinking everything over, analysing what would have to happen and what would happen after. "Tell me what you wish me to do first, Frost. _Then, _I'll think about it."

"You just did." Jack couldn't help but to giggle a bit at Pitch growling. "You should know how the kids act on Halloween, we were thinking you get full reign, mostly for those thrillseekers, those guys watching scary movies. I don't know what the others did on Halloween last time, but they won't get in your way this time, I promise." Jack looked up at him earnestly.

"Halloween was _supposed_ to be mine, Frost."

"And now you're getting it back! So…"

"I'll think on it, now, leave." Jack nodded, smiling. _That wasn't a no. _He was almost out the door when the Nightmares shrieked and ran at him from behind the shelves, making him yelp and falling before he got up, hearing Pitch laugh darkly. He shot him a glare and pushed past the Nightmares that had stopped right before they hit him. "And thank you for that lovely meal." He was too mad to look back but he could _hear _the smirk.

* * *

><p>Sandy rushed to him when he got out of the tunnel and he waved him away with a hand. "I'm fine, <em>Sanderson," <em>Jack had a cheeky grin on when a question mark appeared over the Sandman's head. It was replaced by Pitch and a speaker symbol. _He told you didn't he? _"Yea, nice name." Sandy sighed before a silhouette of Pitch appeared again with a question mark. "I think it went well, I'm here in one piece, aren't I?" Sandy didn't seem to like the humour much. "He's '_thinking it over'_, but I think we got this in the bag. C'mon, let's go home." Sandy made a manta ray this time and Jack got the Wind to help them get to the other side of Earth faster.

* * *

><p>A couple of weeks later Jack decided to check up on Pitch, reaching the main chamber he was greeted by a pair of Nightmares. One snapped its jaws at his hand and he pulled away in time to not lose a finger. "Hey what's your problem!?" He yelled at it, nursing the graze on his hand. The other sniffed at him while the biter snorted. The former sniffed him from his hoodie up to his hair, messing it a little. "H-hey! That isn't grass! Or whatever you guys eat." He pushed its snout away and it snorted before it swung his head at the other, hitting its neck as if to say, <em>back off<em>. It stamped it hooves before nudging Jack forward. "What? Oh, what? I've got escorts?" The biter seemed annoyed with it's job, snorting again. "Oh how _sweet_ of Pitch." Both rolled their eyes and lowered their heads, seemingly deflated and nudged him along. He could already see Pitch up in his throne again, he seemed better, healthier. And high and mighty as always.

"Frost, I thought you came quite early." The Nightmare King said, deadpanned, a hint of disappointment evident.

"You can't get rid of me, Pitch." That annoying grin of Jack's, Pitch couldn't stand it at times. "So… Big day's coming up…"

"I know, Frost."

"So, your answer?"

"To the Guardians and you? Yes." Pitch sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But by help I mean that none of you will interfere with my plans."

"Gee this is already sounding like another take-over-the-world attempt. So, what is this so called plan?"

"You mentioned the thrillseekers, well, those haunted houses adults put together are pathetic to say the least."

"You're gonna make your own?" Jack's eyes widened. _This actually sounds __**fun**__! Huh never thought fun and fear would go together… Oh this again._

"Yes, providing I find a suitable location. And victims."

"You _had _to use the word victim." Jack gave him a look that Pitch ignored, obviously. "Okay, then how are you going to get the kids there?"

"Bring them there myself of course."

"What, kidnap them!?" Jack jumped up, hovering so he was eye level with Pitch. "You **know** me and the others won't allow that. They'll be scared, their parents would go crazy!"

"When they realize, oh, their children are still gone after they left for the haunted house two minutes ago? The kids will go out looking for scares, I'm just making more time for them to be scared. Besides, free transport." Jack couldn't find anything to say for that. "What about this, Frost. You get to be at the venue and watch what I do, good? I'll make sure the shadows keep you hidden. Deal?"

Jack thought a while before nodding. "Officially, then, on Hallow's eve no Guardian shall interfere with you if you do not bring harm to any child." Jack then took Pitch's outstretched hand to shake it. "In other words, Deal." Pitch could feel the cold from Jack's hand seep into his own like a cold flame, smirking in his head, _He would make a perfect demon._ Jack on the other hand* felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle. _Deal with the devil, much?_

"I'll see you up at Burgess on Halloween then." Jack announced before flying back up and out of Pitch's lair. The Nightmares didn't even have time to follow him.

Flying back North to Burgess, Jack thought back to the deal. _Hopefully everything will work out. Look at me, I'm trusting my guts like North does… _And the last thought he had before landing at the roof of Jamie's house was, _How did I even make that deal sound so official? I don't ever talk like that. It sounded like a __**contract**__. _He shuddered, his previous thought of having made a deal with the devil didn't seem so farfetched now, before he heard Jamie calling and waving at him from the pavement. And with that he forgot about the Boogeyman and his overall strangeness, letting Jamie tell him all about his day.

* * *

><p>AN: Yes, yes I know, weird line break-up thingies. Also shorter chapter A Apologies. For me I don't write chapters according to how long they are, I break them up where I see fit (which don't work properly most of the time) and just post them from there. Thanks for the reviews so far you two :D

Sumi-Sprite your profile is looooong but I love pretty much all of it XD (R.I.P Common sense) And all your stories too :L

BVBlover4ever I hope we talking about the same BVB \(wO)/

**Jack on the other hand* felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle.**

***PUNZOFDAMAGE**


	4. Project Hallows

Jack was bored. Like, _really_ bored. It was Halloween and he'd been rushing about having fun with Jamie and other believers around the world, trying to finish up early. Only to get to Burgess with no Boogeyman in sight. He could be letting some kids have their personal snowstorm right now! Then again there were enough snow filled rooms for parents to try figure out already… But still! He groaned, lying down on the fence, the somewhat jagged edge digging into his hoodie but the Wind had kept him afloat so he didn't feel it. Around him families were helping their kids with their costumes or getting ready to sneak out for some thrills. He'd heard from Jamie and the others some of the older kids would try breaking into the old Victorian house in the middle of the woods. Actually now that he thought about it, it would explain why there was a random old bed in the middle of nowhere that used to act as the entrance to Pitch's lair. Maybe there was some sort of ghost story behind it. He could ask Jamie or follow the teens into the house, maybe they'd talk about it… Or he could ask Pitch; after all he must've chosen it as the entrance for _some _reason.

"Done pouting, Frost?"

"GAAAAH," Speak of the devil. The Guardian flailed about a little, Pitch had pulled his hoodie up to cover his head and he struggled to get it back down. Once he untangled himself he glared at the smirking Boogeyman. Well. He seemed happier than usual. And more… _playful?_ Yea, that could be a word he could use. "I hate you, you know that right?" The winter sprite spat and he couldn't glare any harder when Pitch laughed. An actual, happy laugh.

"Tis the night of scares and tricks, dear Jack, how could I resist?" Jack grumbled and got up, shooting frost at him, which he easily avoided.

"Cut it, so, where are we going?" The staff settled on his shoulder, he kept his other hand in the pocket of his hoodie, tilting his head.

"Ah ah ah," Pitch held up a hand, "You know the children of this town well, I'm sure you already know who will be trying to scare each other to death tonight."

"Erm well there's the sisters over th- Wait a minute! Why am I doing your job for you?" Jack had pointed at a house closeby before looking back at Pitch.

"Because I've already gone through the other 196 million square miles of Earth so I thought you'd help me with this one town." Pitch leaned back, arms folded.

"Fine, like I said, two sisters over there, one guy there, there and the house beside that one and another girl there. They were gonna try going into that old house in the middle of the woods."

"Ah yes, the old Benson place… Very well, looks like we'll have everything set up by sundown." _Was Pitch taking notes somewhere? Or was he somehow cataloguing everything in his head? He was staring at all the houses he'd pointed to like he was leaving a mental marker there. Creepy. _ Pitch shook his head a little before looking back at Jack, holding out a hand, smirking. "Shall we head to my haunted house?"

"Are you asking me out on a date?" They both rolled their eyes but he took his hand and the ground beneath them disappeared. _ How did I NOT notice we were in the shade?_

"GAAAAAAH" He tumbled through the shadowgate and landed on his face. He groaned and sat up, panicking when he couldn't find his staff but relaxed when a grey hand held it up for him to take. He grabbed it and jumped up, looking around, getting the chills. "What is this place?" Looking out the boarded windows there was a small road in front of the place. Along the road to the left there were some sort of shophouses, the old two-level ones. Opposite them was some kind of temple. He looked down a little and in front of the building they were in there was a red gate surrounding it. There were some people on the ground level going about their lives but he saw a mother's grip tighten on her daughters' hand when they passed the building. The little girl seemed oblivious but seemed to see Jack, waving and laughing. He waved back but the girl's mother seemed to panic, seeing her daughter wave at nothing and pulled her along faster.

"An old haunted hotel apparently. Something about a hanging somewhere in here and many hauntings after, so it was abandoned. Every other ghost story basically. But there have not been many people breaking in here and its story isn't as popular so no one knows the layout, some don't even know it's a hotel." Pitch dropped the curtain he'd lifted up, watching the mother and girl leave as well. "And look what_ I _found!" He was like a little kid showing off a project and Jack almost laughed at the mental image, following Pitch to another room along the hallway. Pitch opened a door that was already ajar, showing off with a sweep of his hand a corpse that was hanging by a rope attached to the ceiling. Jack's eyes widened and he backed up to hit the wall, a small scream escaping his throat.

"Is t-that REAL!?" Jack focused back on Pitch, who was still smiling proudly. Pitch, as was his nature, just laughed and announced it was better not for him to know. "Piiitch! That isn't funny!"

"Really? You need a better sense of humour, Jack."

"What, like your twisted one? No thank you." He glared, hands on his hip, the Wind keeping him afloat was causing some windows to shake, honestly freaking him out.

"Fine, what does it _smell_ like, Jack? Then, you tell me if it's real." Jack looked between the overly happy Nightmare King and the corpse, shaking his head.

"I think you were right about it being better that I didn't know…" He muttered, following the Boogeyman. He lead him through all the rooms before stopping at the one furthest along the hallway.

"This is where the kids will arrive, everything after, well. Let's see if I can grab all of them in the rooms."

"Woah woah, whaddya mean grab them?"

"Boogeyman eats kids, makes my job so much easier when they're walking straight into the traps, then I don't have to go all the way to their houses." Pitch rolled his eyes and sighed. "I won't harm them, I'll just drag one away occasionally to freak them out, and the child himself."

"And what happens to the kid after?" The youngest Guardian was no fun at all, how ironic.

"You'll just have to see." He held up a hand before the winter sprite could argue. "I don't harm children Jack, their fear is quite enough for me. I'll be bringing them to another abandoned place, further along the road, used to be some sort of tuition center but it's gone now. Once everything is over I'll bring them home, happy?"

"… Fine. Where's the other place?"

"I can't let you go there, not yet, the Nightmares have to set it up properly, speaking of which…" With a snap of his fingers the whole place seemed to explode with the sound of neighing and screeching and hooves stamping. Suddenly all the doors slammed open along the corridor and Nightmares peered out of the rooms, staring at them, some snorting. Pitch glanced along the corridor, checking each Nightmare before nodding, petting the closest one. "Now, time to get the children." He glanced over his shoulder at Jack, who was slumped against the wall, his hand to his chest like he'd just gotten a heart attack. Pitch rolled his eyes and disappeared into the shadows and Jack stood up, looking around at the Nightmares that retreated back into their rooms, the doors closing behind them. Confused he made to leave the building when one reared on its hind legs and slammed the ground in front of Jack. It neighed and nudged him to a corner, eyes narrowed. _ 'I'll make sure the shadows keep you hidden.' Oh yea,now I remember. _ Jack nodded to the Nightmare and floated in the corner of the ceiling of the room, watching it leave.

Suddenly out of the shadows on the other side of the room a couple of kids tumbled in, landing in a pile. The older groaned after a while and got up and looked around before shaking the younger. "Yo… bro, wake up!" The younger woke up, muttering before they both looked up and around the room.

"Woah, what is this place?" The older shook his head when again a girl was spat out of the wall, rolling on the ground and hitting the wall before sitting up, rubbing her head.

"What the actual f-"

"Hey, how'd you get in here!?" The two guys, definitely not brothers, stood up and the older yelled a little.

"I was gonna ask how you got me here but if you're gonna play stupid, fine! Where are we then? And who set this little prank up?" The girl was pissed, glaring at them and the room.

"We didn't bring you here, we got dropped off here too," The older snarled back before the younger calmed him down.

"If none of us was behind this, can we think about who is?" The two older children seemed to be in denial but when another boy was thrown in with two girls from out of nowhere they started to panic.

When the three newest members got up, asking how they got there and who the others were, none of them wanted to take any chances.

"Do you think we were kidnapped? And what is this place?" The new boy asked and the youngest of the boys peeked out between the boards covering the window. It was almost dark out but he could make out the gate. "I think a school, maybe… But this doesn't look like our town, Tick." He glanced up at the oldest and moved away for him to look.

"Okay, okay, why not we focus on what information we _can_ give." One of the newer girls, they seemed to not know each other, asked, hands held out in a sort of motion that said, _ Let's focus here_.

"And what would that be?" The first girl there snarked and glared at them all.

"Our names, we've established he's Tick… I'm Rene."

The boy with Tick piped up next. "You can call me Rit."

"Seth" The last boy,a ginger, said and the first girl there, she sounded American like the first two boys, sighed before saying, "Friends call me Saran."

They looked to the last girl, an Asian, whom just shrugged and added. "And I'm Eni."

"Now that we've got that over with…" Seth sighed, he looked around again. "Who do you think got us here?"

"I still think this is some sorta prank the guys I know set up," Saran huffed, messing with her brown hair, green eyes flicking about the room, as if looking for proof of her theory.

"A prank that brings people from different countries together? How many jets do your friends own?" Tick shot her theory down and the others agreed. "Or at the very least, different states."

"No, I'm from Asia, unless you all migrated there." Eni spoke up, shaking her head. She was picking up the litter on the floor, spreading out a piece of crumpled paper. "Ah hah!"

The others looked up as she held up the small piece of paper. "This, this is from where I live, our everyday 4D paper." She smiled. "We are **definitely**in Singapore, or at the very least Asia."

"So the only thing left is who and why."

"I think I can answer that." And there the King of Nightmares was, a solidifying shadow from the wall behind them, they crowded around away from him.

"What, you some kinda kidnapper?" Tick yelled at him, angry.

"Ew, perv." One of the girls said under their breath and Jack couldn't help but to laugh, covering his mouth, shoulders shaking from keeping it silent.

"As you've already figured out, you all are clearly from different parts of Earth. Explain to me again why someone that could get you all together would need with any more money." Pitch asked, leaning back and looking down at them, almost bored. When none of them answered, he bowed with a sweep of his hand. "As for who." He looked up at them, golden eyes gleaming as he smiled. "The Nightmare King, Pitch Black. Or what you've always called the Boogeyman." He smirked and stood straight again. "Welcome to my little game, you are going to find it quite hard to leave, but you're welcome to try. You all are going to be quite a meal." He tilted his head, expression almost crazed as he slipped back into the shadows.

There was an audible click and the door behind them opened with a long creak. All the kids glanced towards it and each other. Meanwhile Jack felt Pitch reappear beside him, watching them. "Nice show you set up."

The Boogeyman hummed, continuing to watch the children as they slowly left the room, all huddled together. His eyes darted around quickly, analysing each child. Jack could just see information streaming from the kids to Pitch, and he imagined Pitch was much like Tooth when she was out on the field. The mental image of Pitch spouting his own version of all that nonsense like Tooth made him snort. "Piiitch? What is it?" He nudged the Boogeyman, trying to see if he could make it a reality. "Pitch?"

Pitch grabbed his arm and the sunk into the shadows, appearing behind the children in the hallway. The door to the room the kids had arrived in slammed shut, startling them all. Finally, Pitch cracked. "Tick, as he calls himself, afraid of being kidnapped _alone_, _well that's no fun_… Ah, he's Acousticophobic. His friend, Rit, a claustrophobic. Rene, hydrophobic. Saran, afraid of disappointing her parents, oh how _boring_, oh, but she's Automatonophobic. And Eni… Athazagoraphobic. Well, lucky she isn't one of us then." Pitch looked up to see the Jack giving him a strange look. "What is it, Frost, we have work to do…"

_Oh gods, oh gods he actually did it. What does he have some kind of specific dictionary of phobias in his head, sheez. He just shot off every phobia in under a minute like Tooth after kids have a scuffle._ Jack grinned at Pitch before the older spirit rolled his eyes and left, stalking the children.

"How many of you guys play horror games," Eni asked offhandedly, hand placed on the doorknob of a room lightly. Tick and Rit shrugged a little.

"Not much, just some…"

"Movies?"

"Some, but they're all kinda lame…"

"Well then, we know what might have in store for us then." She gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly before pushing it open. Surprisingly it didn't creak. They looked into the room but found nothing important, just some more of the paper she'd found earlier and newspapers scattered around. Seeing nothing was gonna jump out at them they spread out, checking all the rooms.

"Hey." Tick called out and the others headed to where he was. "I saw somethi-" The door slammed behind him and everyone called out, including Jack. The winter spirit looked at Pitch who watched calmly. The kids screamed at Tick to try to get out but the door was jammed. Rit tried ramming into the door but despite its worn appearance, it held strong. Pitch walked through the wall close to them but when Jack followed he was slammed into the wall. He yelped and held his nose, glaring at the wall. He reached out to feel the wall before his hand went through the shadow.

"Apologies, forgot about you." Pitch grinned at him before he disappeared back into the room. Tick was still leaning on the door, banging it before Pitch slammed a hand above him, making him jump back.

"Tick! Tick you okay!?" They could hear Rene shout.

"Y-yea, I'm fine."

"We'll go find a key or a crowbar or something dude." Rit called out before his footsteps faded away.

"Just remember, there's no ghosts or anything! It's just that Boogeyman dude trying to scare us, okay?" Saran told Tick and he nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see it.

"Yea, I ain't scared."

"Good! We'll be right back!" The others left as well, looking for something to help them. Jack saw Pitch's eyes gleam and he pat the Nightmare beside them in the shadows. It disintegrated into smaller versions before they spread out, screeching and stamping on the walls and floor, making a ruckus. Tick screamed, looking around, but he couldn't see the Nightmares that zipped about. Suddenly there was a loud _**crack**_ and the floor went out from under him. The floor exploded in splinters and his scream was cut short when he landed on what would be the floor beneath them all. He groaned and called back when the others yelled if he was okay. "Yea I'm fine!" But scrunched up his face when they continued to ask him if he was still there.

"They can't hear you, you know." He whirled around and there was the Boogeyman, with a weird white-haired teenager behind him.

"I didn't know you had family." The two of them, _were they ghosts or something, _looked at each other with disgust before glancing back at him.

"And there goes the gate, Jack," Pitch called him over and leaned in to whisper something in his ear, motioning at Tick before his hand swept around to motion at the room, or wherever they were. Speaking of which, Tick couldn't see anything beyond the orange light that shone from a corner, he looked up at it but couldn't quite see where the light came from. He looked back to see Jack smiling before he nodded and Pitch walked towards him. He backed up a step and held up his hand, like he was blocking a blow. The Nightmare King snorted before he walked past him, patting him on the head before he disappeared into the shadows, calling over his shoulders. "Take care of him, Frost." Tick had jerked away when he touched him but the sneer Pitch had made him freeze. The man freaked him out honestly and he turned to see Jack grinning a little too happily. "Hey kid, you're gonna have some real fun!" Okay this was really creepy.

"I am _not _dealing with your freakshow!" He yelped, backing away as the teen spun his staff. Jack pouted a little. "Aw, really?" He raised the staff and Tick flinched when blue lightning crackled along it before it shot at the ceiling, lighting everything up. Tick saw that he was in some sort of cave and after the lightning disappeared the lights were suddenly turned on. On the far side of the chamber there was a table with a mountain of candy and there was a sound system on another side of the room.

"W… What?" He looked back at Jack, who was leaning on his staff, watching him.

"Yea, I know, the party isn't gonna start until we get the others in here so we're gonna have to chill here for now."

"…What."

"I still gotta ask Pitch how he got all that stuff over here… and how the heck did he know how to set it up," He finally looked at Tick and laughed. "Okay, look Tick, what happened topside was just a sorta game, you lost, sure, but I wouldn't blame you. Pitch kinda handpicked you and singled you out." Tick was a little less confused, _thank the gods_, but he seemed to still have questions. "It's Halloween, dude, welcome to Pitch's own Haunted House, sorta. He decided to make Halloween a bit more... personal, this year. Of course he hasn't taken it up a notch. Yet. We'll just see how freaked your friends get, eh?" Jack handed some of the candy over before Tick shrugged and dug in. "Tooth is gonna be _so_ _**freaked**_", Tick stopped for a minute to look at him questioningly. "The Tooth Fairy, basically, she's a friend of mine."

"Wait, she's real!?"

"Real as me and Pitch. Also there's North, or you'd call him Santa, Bunny, I'm guessing you can figure that out, and Sandy, Sandman, whatever you call him."

Tick snorted a little, "You're friends with a little rabbit and a fairy. Correction, a bunny that didn't show up."

"Well, yea, why? Although I think you have a weird definition of 'little'. He _is _six foot tall or something. Just think _**kangaroo**_, and, he didn't miss out on Easter on purpose y'know. Easter's really important to him, you should see him and North argue about it." Jack motioned with his hands, before Tick piped up.

"Can I meet them?"

"Well… they don't like Pitch all that much…" Jack scratched the back of his neck before they heard a sort of far off screaming and Rene came rolling in. "Well, that took a long time."

She sat up, eyes darting around before focusing on Jack and Tick. "Oh please." She screamed and backed away from where Pitch appeared behind her. "This one was harder to get alone, do you know how hard it was for me to find an actual pool?"

"Well, that explains why she's dripping wet." Tick rushed over to help Rene up. "I think you overdid it though."

"Really? Why not we ask her?" Rene flinched at Pitch mentioning her and looked up with fearful eyes. "Do I really have to end this?"

"Pitch." Jack scolded his sternly.

"Fine." The Boogeyman glared down at the girl, "Do you think you'll be sneaking out of your house anytime soon?" The girl shook her head frantically and he nodded before looking back up at Jack. "Then I'll leave her in your care Jack, I still have to get the others." He left again, leaving the winter spirit to calm the girl down with Tick, both explaining to her what was actually happening afterwards.

* * *

><p>AN:Out of the six kids one of them is my IRL friend, I hope you guys can guess who. I asked her what her worst fear was and when she told me I just went, "Well how the frag is Pitch supposed to work with THAT" after a while I just told her, "Y'know what, Imma make you Arsonophobic"

Ensuing argument.

Also before that I asked her and somewhat roleplayed a little so I could get her reaction to this lil situation. She tried proposing to Jack every two minutes, I shit you not.

"Whisper Marry Me"

"CAN YOU STOP WITH THE PROPOSING!? WOMAN!"

"BUT HE'S CUTE"

*facepalm* I'm not even kidding. Anyways, WHOAH, 3000+ words what is wrong with Rubix today?

AK: Aside from what's wrong with you every day?

BTW, I got the RoTG disc! I actually wanted the books but my mom said no so she got me the next best thing. (I still coulda gotten the Doctor Who cap though)

And during the test run I found the languages had Cantonese and Chinese. Now, I absolutely suck at Chinese but my mum is like

Play it, play it now.

Me: Why?

Mum: Because I've seen you watch this show 20 times this week, you know the exact words, play it in Chinese or Cantonese with no subtitles. I want you to learn.

Ends up with my mum actually understanding the jokes in the movie and liking Jack even more. (Pitch FTW tho)

Anyways, thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you like it so far :D

This chapter was longer than it should've been so I chopped it in half.


	5. Project Hallows (2)

And here you see me throwing my friend into the fic :P

Out of the six original kids you now know which is ma friend. She srsly likes Jack as much as I love Pitch, to each her own, meh.

ONTO THE CHAP

* * *

><p>Pitch had been tempted to go after the 'bravest' girl first, just to teach the others a lesson, but he found it oh so cliché, so instead decided to just drag the children away on plain impulse. But the time to get Saran had come. They were all shaken after the disappearance of Tick and Rene's disappearance in the random room and bathroom respectively. They were on the third level, having moved down from the fourth to look for Tick after he'd presumably fallen through a hole in the room. They'd lost Rene in the bathroom on this level, all they had heard was her screaming before a loud splash, like she'd fallen into a lake but by the time they got there the bathroom was dry as it should be. They'd taken the time to try getting some water to drink as well, Seth had pointed out that if the Boogeyman hadn't been lying, they'd be stuck here for quite a while and might become dehydrated. Sadly, none of the taps worked and the pipes seemed to be dry as a bone, which further added questions about how they could have possibly heard the splash when Rene disappeared.<p>

Eni sighed while Saran threw the bottle she'd found at the wall, roaring in frustration. She rolled her eyes before looking over at Rit and Seth. Seth walked over to calm Saran down while Rit was messing with the piping. Her eyes widened when he came away with a grunt, holding a pipe. "What. Are you trying to do?"

"Weapon." He shrugged, smiling. With that he glanced about the corridor from the door of the bathroom. "Corpse party much."

"Huh, maybe so. Don't play many horror games." Eni shrugged, Saran and Seth following them.

"**THUMP**", they looked up, it sounded like something heavy had landed above them. They looked at each other and after a while Seth ran ahead to check it out, the others following a step behind. They reached the room they'd appeared in and were shocked to see another couple of kids were there. They were both Indian and they guessed they were siblings. The two looked up to see the others and were frightened.

"Woah woah, calm down. We're friendlies." Rit tried reassuring them but Saran slapped his hand down.

"That won't work when you're holding a PIPE," Saran hissed and Rit apologized meekly.

"T-the man, he said-"

"You mean the 'Boogeyman'? Don't worry he's all bark and no bite. C'mon, get up." Saran held out a hand and got them on their feet. "So, what are your names?"

_The logical choice of victim would've been Seth or the Eni girl, to eliminate the calm ones but right about now Saran was looking more and more… right for the job,_ Pitch growled lowly to himself. _ Bark and no bite, as if._

"I'm Danish, my sister here is Shyla." The little girl waved but hid behind him. "What exactly are we doing here?"

"Some twisted game, the old man must be loony. C'mon, we're gonna look for our friends and leave."

"You lost your friends?" Danish was nervous, no doubt worried about his sister and what the 'lunatic' had in store for them.

"Well, yea, but we'll find them soon. If not we'll get the police to burn this place to the ground. With in it." Saran said confidently and they continued down the stairs. "Just stick together, he likes to pick us off one by one like a coward."

_Okay_, Pitch's eye twitched. _**That**__ was quite enough._ Waving his hand, blacksand swirled around it and seeped into the cracks of the wooden stairs, filling every available space before exploding beneath the girl, tearing a scream out of her. She fell and the sand caught her before she hit the floor, flying her away to another room. The door slammed behind her as her companions screamed her name, the youngest, Shyla, crying from the scare.

Saran pounded on the door but after a while deemed it useless, after all Tick had done the same to no avail. _Might as well face whatever that lunatic has in store for me her-_, she spun around and froze. There was a decent sized bed and on it were a dozen dolls. "N-no w-ay", her voice cracked, she was positively _shaking_. A chuckle sounded and she jerked her head to look to the left, freezing when a puppet hung close to her. Suddenly the whole room was filled with high-pitched laughter and a baritone one, soon joined by her scream. The scream was cut off just as the others reached the door and everything quietened, leaving an eerie silence.

Meanwhile, down below in the cavern Saran was thrown into the cave. She panted, getting up, eyes wild with fear, looking up when she heard the same baritone laugh only to see the Boogeyman. She didn't have the ability to look at her surroundings, focused on the gaze of the Nightmare King. "All bark and no bite, eh?"

She yelped and quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She screamed out and curled herself up a little when she hit the wall. Arms surrounded her and she thrashed about a bit before she heard Tick asking her to calm down and someone yelling far away. _Was someone here to chase the freaky man away? Did Tick survive and get help?_ But she looked up only to see Pitch beside her in a similar situation. He was backed up on the wall with an albino yelling at him, _wait, was the teen __**floating**__!? He was!_

Pitch was getting chewed out on while Tick and Rene got Saran up and by the time Jack was done with him he was already halfway through the shadows. "Alright, alright, Jack, fine." He held up his hands placating Jack before turning to Saran before bowing. "I apologize, for the somewhat intense scare. I may have gone too far."

"May have!?" The albino was yelling at him again and Saran was soothed by the fact. She smirked a little once she got her bearings and understood she was in no danger. "I was right! Bark and no bite!"

"What!?" Pitch turned on her, and this time Jack was the one with his hands up in a, _ Don't. Don't, Just don't. _motion.

"You heard me, we're alive after all!"

"Really, girl, I specifically remember saying you'd make a decent meal."

"It doesn't feel like you just ate us alive!"

"Please, girl, you are much too fat."

"EXCUSE ME!?" Tick and Rene had to hold her back by the abdomen before Pitch glared at Jack.

"Deal with them. The newest child is already crying. I need to end that." With that he was gone and Saran calmed down. Jack introduced himself and motioned at the candy and other food that Nightmares were bringing in. Tick got the music started as well and got them to dance too, laughing when Jack failed exceptionally.

Noone saw it, but even if someone was in the shadow realm he and his Nightmares owned, Pitch would deny the small smile he had when he heard the party behind him.

The kids had gotten to the second level but unknown to them another four had arrived, and so the night continued. Pitch would go to where his victims were and bring them to the hotel, all the while picking them off if they got too close to the entrance. From the original group only Eni was left. _But how to deal with this one?_ _She feared oblivion, the best thing to do was to knock her out and give her a Nightmare he supposed… or…_ He smirked in the shadows, moving in when the girl approached the stairs to the first level. He had another victim and maybe, maybe he could find a way to get it to play along.

Eni looked up, he knew that voice. It was the Boogeyman! She ran forward, towards the room at the far end of the hallway, stopping at the edge of the doorway, holding the pipe she had up, ready to swing. Rit had dropped it when he disappeared but that didn't mean she couldn't get the lunatic back for him. The demon appeared and the door slammed close when he backed out of the room, smirking. Screaming, she ran at him with the pipe, swinging at him, only for it to pass right through him. _What!?_ She whirled around, ready to strike again but the man had continued walking like nothing had happened. She striked at him again and she fazed right through him again. _What!?_ She was in front of him now and she yelled at him, but still no reaction. She was feeling nauseous. _Was she dead already?_ She made to lean on the wall but her hand went right through the wall and she fell into the room on the other side. It was… weird. This looked like a sort of meeting room, scattered about she saw some pictures of… was that Tick and the others!? She checked all the photos, it was of her and the others, all in their own towns, taken tonight it seemed. But there were many more kids, _how long has this been going on!? Wouldn't the police notice if so many kids went missing!?_ But she'd heard of kids going missing and never being found again. She felt like she was going to puke. Would she become like all the others? Forgotten by all but her family and friends? They might even forget her too, once they assumed she was dead. She was going to cry when a hand was placed on her shoulder. She screamed and slapped at the hand but it retreated fast enough to avoid her. But there was no one there, which scared her all the more. She slid down and sat, trying to calm her breathing, realising too late how the shadows grew and darkened, swallowing the entire room before she was falling. Only to get caught by someone. Looking up she saw a strange white-haired teen smiling at her.

"Hey kid, you okay?"

"Erm…" _Wow, real smooth. Idiot._ She was flustered when he laughed and let her down, she barely stood up properly before dusting herself off. "Where… are we?" She looked around and was surprised to see about a dozen kids partying or gorging themselves on food.

"Eni!" Small arms wrapped around her leg and she looked down to see Shyla, her brother walking over with the others.

"I'm Jack, Jack Frost. And you just finished Pitch's little game of Exploit thy fear." The winter spirit bowed a little, laughing. _Okay… Crush acquired. Now I get it when they always say the boys have an adorable laugh. Oh damn._ Eni was figuring out how stupid it would be to slap herself but decided to let Shyla drag her away to the party, Jack following them. She was there a while longer before blacksand flowed in from various holes and dents in the cave walls, swirling together before exploding, the Boogeyman appearing with a flourish. Some of the kids gasped like her, she _still_ didn't trust the man.

"As much as it pains me to say this," She could hear the sarcasm dripping off the sentence, "I'm afraid you all have to leave now."

"Aw, Piiiitch!",Jack whined with a few other kids, floating upside down. _She almost forgot, he was called Pitch Black, a strange name, it had never been associated with the Boogeyman before. Heck, she didn't even know it could be a name!_

"Wait are they related or something?" Eni looked around, asking, and another kid piped up. "What are you his dad or something!?"

If Pitch was any bit childish he would've probably said Ew or something. He wasn't, but Jack did it for him. "Aw heck no! He's the King of Nightmares, dark gloomy and brooding, I, on the other hand-"

"Am the most annoying and obnoxious Guardian the world has yet to see." The children started to laugh as they bickered, continuing to party. They thanked Jack silently for distracting the older spirit until even Jack could stall no more.

"Alright, enough's enough. Take as much candy you can get your grubby little hands on before I send you back." Pitch let out a whistle and about 20 Nightmares appeared, scuffling the floor and snorting. Jack swore all the creatures of the dark- including Pitch- puffed up a little with pride as the children 'Wow'ed. Jack helped Pitch get the kids on the Nightmares, sending them off. Of course, there had to be a few kids afraid of the horses themselves so they led them back personally.

Eni wasn't one of the of the kids that were to be brought back home personally but she decided to stick around anyways.

"I didn't think you'd be afraid of horses." Jack floated beside her and she was going to nod when Pitch interrupted them, speaking up from the other side of the cavern as he lifted a boy up to sit on a Nightmare.

"She's not, I told you she was athazagoraphobic, in fact, she has a button back home that says "99% Unicorn" which is in fact, an equine." Eni glared at him a little, Jack laughing.

"WOAH!" Seth almost fell of the Nightmare he was on and was caught by Pitch. The spirit helped him back on before droning on. "Do try to hang on to the reins, don't try any tricks and you should be safe."

"Woah" It was said somewhat softly but everyone heard it anyway. "British airlines here." The kids started giggling.

"And then suddenly," one of the kids was motioning with his hands dramatically, "British airlines." That got all the kids laughing, more friends made. Those that got the references thrown about talked to each other before another yelled out. "And then, a star fell there."

Pitch rolled his eyes at the commotion as the kids joked and laughed even louder and with another whistle the Nightmares galloped into the dark tunnels, reappearing at different parts of the planet, sending the children back.

"I'll bring her home" Jack piped up, still beside Eni.

"By that you mean, you're making me bring all these back home personally." Pitch shot back but motioned at one of the tunnels anyways. Jack led her through and she was surprised to find herself at her block's void deck.

"Best you get home, I'll meet you there." Jack flew up while Eni had to take the lift, unlocking the door when she got to her flat. Her family was already asleep and she sighed. "Nice place, can't believe there are like, what, five people living here?"

"Seven actually." She answered, keeping her stuff before getting a glass of water.

"Woah…"

"It's actually kinda normal, y'know. Flats are _so_ expensive nowadays." She sat back on the couch and he joined her. He kept asking about her family and her life and they just chatted for a while. Soon, though, Jack announced that he had to leave. The temperature was getting to him.

"Jack Frost, remember? I'm melting here!" But before he left she promised to keep believing in him. _Whenever there's a blizzard, a snowstorm, it'll be me, for sure._ He'd said before disappearing again.

"I'm back!" Jack called out, flying back into the cave to see Pitch send Danish and Shyla back home.

"Good, you're going to help me clean up." Pitch ordered while getting onto his own Nightmare.

"Hey! What about you?" Jack looked at the mess the kids had made, _man they'd eaten a __**lot**__ of candy._

"I need to pick up the stragglers, I can feel something scurrying about up top." Jack groaned, he swore Pitch was making stuff up. "Either that or something might've found the corpse…"

Jack almost gagged at the thought, making a face when he saw Pitch wasn't the least disturbed at that image. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"A thousand years and no one has yet to figure that out, Jack. Stop trying." The Boogeyman shrugged before him and the Nightmare disappeared into one of the tunnels and the Wind helped Jack to gather the litter, pushing it all into a corner. _Pitch probably thinks it'll take me a while, he must've forgotten Wind._ He laughed to himself and thanked the Wind silently before heading over to the sound system. _Now, how does this thing work?_ He poked around a bit and found out the sound and light system was connected but couldn't really get any other information of how it worked and how in the world it was getting power.

"Stop messing with that, Frost, it's expensive." Jack hadn't heard Pitch return, but then again it was always hard to detect the Boogeyman unless he allowed you to do so.

"Oh really? What, you walked into a store and bought this? Where'd you get the cash?" Pitch snorted.

"Rather I used a good quarter of the candy to get it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means North is going to be looking for you soon, thinking you've played a prank on him."

"What… did you do."

"Would you like to see? I can't wait to see what the elves have done to North's workshop." Everything clicked together.

"Oh my gods, you gave a quarter of that much **candy**, to the _**elves**_!?" Jack was shocked, not to mention curious and even pleased. _Oh, this was too good to miss._ "Let's go!" Jack laughed, he could already imagine it, gods the reality would be _so much __**better**_! He flew past Pitch that was walking towards a nearby wall that was in the shade and found himself in one of the darker corners of North's workshop. He could barely hold his laughter in, neither of them wanted to get caught. The yetis were yelling at the elves and each other, trying to catch the small buggers as they bounced around hyperactively. Then North exited his office, the door slamming open. The man walked a few steps only for an elf to fly past. It took him a second to realize elves should not be able to fly. He caught another one that had been somehow catapulted to his face, holding it up but it's pointy head. A yeti ran over, talking quickly in its strange language.

"Vat? How did elves become like vis?" The yeti shrugged, distressed when another crowd of elves ran past carrying a bunch of toys. Watching the chaos, North started yelling commands to round the elves up, and when that didn't work, _the elves always split up just as they were to be caught, like groups of fish when a shark was coming down on them,_ resorted to catching them one at a time. They were shoved into various rooms to try to contain them. All the while Jack and Pitch laughed as every once in a while a Yeti would miss and slam into someone or something. One of the elves even resorted to biting a Yeti when he was caught and this caused the others to try and do the same.

All in all Jack would admit that this was probably the best Halloween he'd had yet.

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><p>AN: Well... Two chaps in two days? Yay? XD

My head just says that would be something Pitch would totally do if he'd have the chance lol.

Anyone gets the "British Airlines" and "Then a star fell there" reference? No? Aw. Not even... DOOITZ!

Okay enough with dat guy :P

This bunny is all grown up, now for him to take care of the other baby bunnies. So send them in! Prompts are welcome!

Rubix and rabbits, Out!


	6. Accent

Hello, here to warn you there's an OC here! One of the Holiday spirits! I have two kinda OCs, those that are original myths, folklore and an idiot I came up with, fortunately she/he won't show up for a while!

Anyways, Onto the Chapter!

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><p>"Now North, heh, don't you think this is a little- HEY WATCH IT!" Pitch was backed up to a wall, his hands up placating as he tried to calm the Cossack down. He'd ducked just in time for one of the sabers the Russian always carried around with him to embed itself into the wall where he'd been standing. On the other side of the room he could hear the bright familiar laugh of the youngest Guardian, Jack Frost. He jumped to the side as another saber came at him before yelling at the source of the laughter. "Jack, you traitor!"<p>

"It was either me or you, Pitch!" Jack yelled back. Apparently North had gone after Jack, as Pitch predicted, after the Halloween incident. The little weasel squealed on him the minute he was caught, little coward! Jack had visited him again and told him the others had a serious matter to discuss, and truth be told, he really didn't want to endanger the 'truce' they had. Only to find an annoyed Father Christmas with an even more annoyed army of yetis on the other side. He could see some cages filled with elves and almost smirked when he thought of how similar it was to when he'd had the faeries in his grasp. He didn't smirk long though, as North had come after him almost immediately. And the entire building was warded! He couldn't find a usable shadow anywhere! Ah! A room, finally! He shut himself inside quickly, staying far away from the door, eyeing it like one of the sabers would pierce through the wood any moment. Luckily that didn't happen and he pulled up one of the chairs in the room to rest. He looked around to find that he was in a sort of guest room.

"Get out of room, Pitch!"

"And get impaled with a saber, no thank you, good sir." Pitch leaned back on the chair, crossing his legs. Looking around he saw a cupboard to his right, curious, he waved his hands and nightmaresand poured out of the small pouch he carried with him, opening it for him. "… Tea? My, how convenient." He was able to make enough to last him for a while, sipping slowly. He was going to be stuck here for a while, might as well make himself feel at home. Who knew there wasn't just the one kitchen at the North Pole. This room extended to a few others, making it seem like a house itself. He could stay here for a long time and North knew it. Speaking of, the Russian was still outside, he could hear him pacing.

_Wonder how long before he turns on Jack, disloyal brat._ Pitch growled softly before he heard the large boots of North stalk away, listening out with his keen sense of hearing. Deeming it safe he eventually cracked the door open, only to find an army of elves. He sneered down at them when the foremost one crossed its arms and glared at him, followed by the others. "What do you want, vermin?" The elf motioned at its compatriots before pointing to one of the cages. It seemed he was blaming Pitch for their latest predicament. He rolled his eyes before commanding the nightmare sand with him to sweep at the elves, making a pathway for him to get away. He guessed North knew he was out but maybe he'd gotten tired of it. Christmas was coming, two months off to be somewhat precise. He could remember quite a bit of the layout of the place and headed to the main room with the Globe. The meeting area there with the fireplace had snowglobes there, if he remembered correctly. It would be a pain to make a shadowgate out in the snow, if he found a window to escape through, so he opted for the easiest way out. And maybe he took a few extras, so what?

Pitch froze as he was about to reach the main room, hearing North yelling at Jack faraway. He almost laughed, his accent was ridiculous at this point, he bet Jack couldn't make out half of what he was saying. There was a lot of Russian thrown in as well, creating a weird, and quickly-spoken slur of words. As much as he'd love to see Jack get chewed out on, he rather not share his fate. He grabbed one of the snowglobes, _what is that yeti looking at!?,_ and maybe a few more, _okay that yeti was getting too close for comfort,_ before breaking one, intent of travelling to Burgess. The light and bright colours would've burned his eyes but he'd been stuck in the _North Pole_ long enough that his eyes had adjusted. Going through the portal he arrived back on the lake, just on the edge of it too, a few more steps and he would've been on thin ice, literally.

The Boogeyman turned, intent of going back to the lair, honestly the game of cat and mouse had been tiring and he wanted to just wait for night to arrive in the small town. Only to come face to face with a floating Jack-O-Lantern. He jerked back, eyes wide before calming down. "What is it." He ground out and waved at it like an annoying insect when he got no answer. "Apologies, Hallow, but I have business to attend to." The Jack-O-Lantern glowed brighter before dimming, flying past Pitch to block him. "Hallows, go. I am _bloody_ **tired**, alright?"

"Halloween that crazy? What were you up to, sheesh." Pitch sighed, turning to regard the source of the double-voice. What seemed like a living scarecrow was leaning against a nearby tree, tossing a curled-up spider into the air and catching it like a ball. Upon closer inspection, it seemed like a toy, a plush even. But it wasn't exactly a living scarecrow playing with it. A Jack-o-lantern acted as the head , floating above the body, no neck visible,and although the sleeves of the flannel and jeans he wore were stuffed with straw, you could still see dark-coloured hands underneath it all. He had a sort of double belt that criss-crossed each other. The one that was higher in the left had several pouches with candy while the right had a cluster of small, grape-sized bombs and a small hand-held scythe as well as another pouch, its contents unknown. He had a strap on the lower half of his left leg and a small knife was kept there. Jack wasn't the only one that changed his outfit with the times, the spirit in front of him had a black leather jacket on as well, a pumpkin painted on the back in neon paint. A biker outfit, except for the flannel underneath that contained the straw.

"None of your business, Hal." Pitch rubbed at his face, great, another teen he had to entertain.

"Ha, no. It happens on Halloween, it's every bit my business." The spirit of Halloween jumped in after Pitch into his lair, a few of the floating Jack-O-lanterns following, illuminating the hallways with their orange glow. "So, how'd you and the Guardians make up? Spill the goods." Pitch had barely any time to sit on his throne before the younger spirit was on the armrest.

"It's a truce more of, it is complicated to say the least."

"Is it related to the sudden spike of Halloween spirit you had lately?" Hallows leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head. "If I recall, your thoughts were literally along the lines of, 'Trick, then treat.' And I saw your little operation. Nice spin on the trick or treat part, Pitch, I'm impressed." The Jack-o-lantern of a head spun to look at him, annoying him with its glow as the face on the pumpkin shifted, one 'brow' raised. "What was up with the ice kid though?"

"He was acting as a guard more or less, the imbeciles thought I'd hurt the kids."

"Hey Pit_CH!?" Speak of the brat,_ Pitch sat up, the two teens with him staring at each other, one with wide eyes while the other with amusement. "Erm… hi?" The Winter sprite raised a hand hesitantly to wave slowly. Meanwhile the pumpkin of a head spun at an alarming speed and looked at Pitch at an impossible angle before looking back at Jack, nodding in acknowledgement. "Greetings, Jack, was it?"

"The two troublemakers of their seasons, oh what have I done." Pitch groaned, leaning back. _If those two became friends the spirit world was doomed._

"You're too dramatic, Pitch." The two piped up at the same time before grinning at each other.

"On the contrary. Now, before you two wreak chaos on the world, leave."

"No!" The two said again, smiling at him insanely. Jack leaned in to whisper something and his constant glancing at Pitch was slightly unnerving. Scratch that, now with both of them looking at him… _Nope. Not today. Not these two. _Getting up, the Boogeyman was just short of running away and sealing himself in a cavern before he slipped on ice, the mini smoke bombs Hallows threw shrouding his vision. He coughed, he was going to _kill_ the two fools! Hitting the wall he swore loudly, "Bloody hell! You two'll regret-"

"Come on then!" The Guardian had yelled, laughing as the two floated far above him. Growling he sent a couple of Nightmares after them before summoning even more.

Fortunately Hallows could dodge every Nightmare that came at him and Jack laughed as he froze a couple too, the two whirling around the cavern. Pitch was watching them strangely and Jack wondered if his very consciousness was in the Nightmares, that would explain how angry they seemed, some smashing into the walls in full force when Jack dodged, only to swirl and assemble again, spiking, bristling. That gave him an idea! Whistling, he motioned at Hallows to come over, giving him the plan quickly before they both split, later coming together with the entire horde behind them. They headed straight for Pitch, laughing in their heads before making the Nightmares slam straight into Pitch when they split up in front of him. Barrelling into the wall, Pitch shook his head, in sync with the remaining Nightmares. Glaring at them he hissed before yelling. "What the bloody **hell**! I have the right mind to kill you both! I will smash your-" "Woah Pitch," "-heads in, you little-"

"Woah Pitch, language, language!" Hallows held his hands up, laughing the whole time, with Jack doubled over in laughter. Finally the two flew off, laughing their heads off.

"Oh my gods!"Jack gasped in between his laughing fits, "He actually did it! Full out British!"

"He even went Scottish!" Hallows laughed with him. "How does that even work!?" The two could barely fly straight before they quit and rolled down a hill. It took what felt like hours before they tired themselves out. Hallows pushed himself up on his elbows before smirking at the white-haired teen beside him. "So… the Rabbit next?"

"You mean the Kangaroo? Yea sure!"

"Do you think he'll change too, like Pitch?"

"Oh my gods, that would be perfect! Oh we should've gotten Pitch on camera! We need a camera, let's go get a camera!" The younger spirit chattered excitedly, he hadn't had so much fun with another spirit in ages! In fact, he didn't think he'd worked so well with anyone before!

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><p>AN: *slow clapping* Good job Pitch, you've doomed the entire spirit world. Anyways hope you liked Hallows! I like to think Pitch is the kind of spirit that sticks with his attire the entire time while some will change like Jack! Apologies if Hallows seems weird, he looks better in my head...Yea. This entire thing was another reference, like the whole "Then a star fell there" thing from the same guys. One of them, during the video got ditched and just raged. "Oh my fking god man! Imma bash yo fkin head in! Oh my god!" "He lives in England, but he's turning Scottish!"

So. Yea.

Yea.

Thanks for the review supaherolena02!

I had an entirely different setup for this story planned but my brain made Hallows switch to Jack's side so... yea. I wanted Hallows to go after Jack after he annoyed them both and when he missed or hit Pitch instead, well Pitch would do the Scottish-raging :L

Anyways, Rubix, original rabbits and three new baby rabbits, signing out! (I so need names for the three buggers, genders have not been defined yet, so I'm calling them Ashe, Jamie and Jacque/Jacky since those names can be for both genders)


	7. Flicker

By the end of the day, Jack and Hallows had pulled enough pranks to make the spirit of April Fool impressed. They'd gone around the colder parts of the globe, pranking kids as they went. "Hey, you think Pitch is over what happened earlier yet?"

"Probably not," The spirit of Halloween was perched beside him on the roof of a rather large city building, looking out over the cityscape. "Wanna risk it?"

"Maybe not…"

"What, are you scared?"

"No way!" The two laughed and Jack made to push at him, freezing when his hand went right through his chest. "W-whaa" He squeaked, panicking in his head. _Nono, what's happening, why'd that happen, what happened to me!? Is it back? Can't I be touched anymore!? Oh Gods, am I invisible again!? What if even spirits can't see me! Am I an actual ghost now!?_

Jack didn't realize he'd started to hyperventilate until Hal had started shaking him, telling him repeatedly to calm down, _just calm down, what's wrong? It's okay, it's okay, this is normal, calm down, calm down Jack!_ It took a while before Jack snapped out of it, slowing down his breaths before looking back up at Hal, shaking. "W-what's happening…"

"Jack, this is normal, it's perfectly normal, why are you so freaked? Dude, calm down!" Jack pushed him away for a moment, bringing his knees up to his chest, calming his breaths. "J-just… tell me what's happening…"

"O-okay… I'm the spirit of Halloween, right?" He stopped before Jack nodded and continued. "Halloween's over, in a literal sense, the Halloween spirit is fading. So…"

"You're going to disappear!?" Jack almost shrieked, terrified, _that could happen!?_

"Jack! Calm down!" He waited for Jack to settle back down. "Yes, in a sense. I've got nothing to do anyways until next year so I'm going to have to stay back at home."

"So I won't be able to see you anymore?"

"Well you can if you go back to my home. Just a barn in the middle of nowhere, I'll show you later."

"H-how long do you have left? Before you… y'know."

Hal had a sort of spooky vibe as he repeated the phrase he'd remembered forever. "Till the last Jack-O-Lantern goes out." Hal Sighed a little, stopping Jack before he said anything. "And no, we can't stop it. I'm not _supposed_ to stay around for the whole year."

The two boys were silent for a long while before Jack stood up, holding a hand out for Hal. He was confused, seeing Jack grin, what could he possibly be up to now? "Then we shouldn't waste time, let's keep going until you gotta go." Hal laughed, pulling himself up before they both jumped off the building, ready to continue their pranking spree.

"Alright, load up!" Jack yelled soft enough so the other boys with them, all hidden behind the bushes in a park ,could hear him, but not their targets. "Ready!? Aim!" The boys pulled their arm back, ready to throw them with all their might. Jack paused before sending Hal a look. Hal gave a small nod and smirked before yelling.

"Fire!" The boys in the park, playing around by themselves, had not noticed their 'rival's until they were drenched. After that an all out war broke out, the initial victims stealing the water balloons and firing back. This was as close to a snowball fight Jack could get. The winter sprite laughed when one of the water balloons he lopped at Hal hit its target, who screamed like a girl.

"You put out my fire!?" Hal shook his head vigorously before the light in the jack-o-lantern returned, glowing hotly. "I'm gonna kill you!" He flew after Jack, roaring. Jack flew off laughing, a bunch of water balloons in his arm. He threw them at Hal as he got closer before he hit a tree.

"Ow." He groaned and looked up to see Hal with his own armful of water balloons. "Heh" Hal stopped short of hitting him in the face with the water balloons and all the boys froze, hearing their parents call for them to get home. The mixed groans of disappointment hanging in the air made it feel heavy, the boys shuffling off, dripping wet.

"Alright, let's go too, we can start another." Hal pulled Jack up and the two looked around at the 'damage'. Looks like the plants in the park wouldn't need watering. Jack was about to fly off first when Hal started flickering in and out of his vision. "Oh boy." Hal held up his hands to calm Jack down. "Okay, it looks like this is goodbye Jack. Don't give me that face, I'm not dieing or anything."

"But… you didn't show me where you lived…"

"Next year, okay? I'll see you next Halloween. And tell Pitch he owes me for all the candy he stole…" Expecting himself to flicker out, Hal stared at his hands when he didn't, although he was very much see-through. "What? But that doesn't make any sense… unless there's still someone out there…"

"The last light?" Jack was surprised but happy, that was the first phrase he thought of and smiled at the thought, of course Hal didn't quite get the reference.

"Y-yea… But…"

"Show me where you live, then, we still have time!"

"Jack, I think I'll be gone before we get halfway there…"

"Then we have to find that last Jack-O-Lantern!" Jack sprang up and after a while Hal sighed, shaking his head as he got up as well, laughing.

"Okay then, this way!" It didn't take long before they realized they were heading for Burgess. _What were the chances it was Jamie of all kids?_ However a slight turn as they got closer proved that impossible coincidence nonexistent. Instead, they were heading towards the woods. _There! _Jack could see a light flickering in between the branches of the trees.

"No. Way." They both gasped as they hovered. Perched on a tree with a Jack-O-Lantern as he read, was Pitch himself.

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><p>AN: Just to clear up, yea Hal is African American. IDK why but I just think that. Yes I just ended this that way. Also sorry if I am gone for too long, some... problems have appeared, also I took up a little Christmas Project so I'll be drawing a lot to finish by Christmas. (So many ponies to draw, so little time!)

Now! The idea for the previous chapter, that prompt, Accent, will be attempted by 13BlueBananas one day :P Go check out her own drabble series, "Dawn of the drabbles"! I for some reason think it as a sort of sibling to this fic thingy. It seems we are always on the same chapter... hmm. Seriously though her fic is great so go check it out!

Thanks to 13BlueBananas and whoever 'Angel' may be for reviewing!

Edit: Omgomgomg I am SO sorry! How'd I post the wrong chapter!? *perfectionist's panic* Oh god I am so sorry guys ;_;

I unintentionally cheated you guys! *you do not simply make a mistake like this*

Okay hopefully I did it right this time, and now I gotta go. Sorry again, bye!


	8. Flicker (2)

"Frost, Hallows," Pitch barely glanced at them, still reading his book.

"This is low, Pitch." Jack growled.

"Even for you." Hal finished, arms crossed. Pitch still paid no mind to the two teens.

"Whatever do you mean?" Pitch held his hand to his chest dramatically, letting the book drop to his lap.

"I hate you." Jack sighed.

"No you don't, now." Pitch swung his legs over so he was still on the branch, facing them.

"Now what?" The two teens regretted what they did to Pitch. They should've figured Pitch would find something as a means of revenge.

"I'm guessing you wanted Hallows to show you where he lived, yes?" Pitch grinned at them, eyes gleaming, his head in the palm of his left hand as he leaned back, the other arm crossed against his chest.

"Yeah." The both droned, _oh would he cut to the chase._ "What do you want in return, Pitch." Jack huffed.

"Not much, I should probably smash this," He reached over to hold up the Jack-O-Lantern. "But you wouldn't want that, right?" Seeing the two teens glare at him silently he rolled his eyes and pouted. "You two are no fun, you're losing it, Jack. Hurry along then. This can only last so long."

"Y-you're letting us go?" Jack was surprised and gaped a little.

"Tick tock Jack, now scram." Pitch leaned far back and slid off the branch but appeared from behind the tree, _used a shadowgate probably_. "I'll take care of this." He held the Jack-O-Lantern carefully and made a shooing motion with his other hand. Hal tugged at Jack and after getting no response he flew in front of him, his demon-wings keeping him afloat. Jack was _still_ gawking.

"Jack, let's go! Come, on!" Hal got a good grip and pulled Jack away and after a while the two quickly flew off to what most considered the countryside. Jack watched as the scenery changed from the small towns to large fields and some rock formations dotted about. Up ahead they were approaching a rock formation that had a hole in it, as they got closer, the air in the hole seemed to ripple, like air over a fire. When they actually passed through what seemed to be the portal, the scenery flashed and suddenly it was night. What was supposed to be more of the rock formations disappeared, now they were flying over gigantic fields of corn and wheat. Up ahead he could see a big part of the farm was for pumpkins. Jack-O-Lanterns floated about, some had handles and held candy. Down on the ground, gigantic spiders skittered about, _wait, why was their backs… __**moving!? **_Looking closer, it turned out there were thousands of smaller spiders perched on their backs. Jack shuddered, feeling goosebumps all over his arms. _Gross, gross, gross!_ At the junction of the larger paths, separating the fields from the pumpkin patches, there was a well-worn looking barn. Hal landed at it's entrance and a load of Jack-O-Lantern rushed over, glowing. He shooed them away with a 'Later' and they flew off past Jack and outside. At the back of the barn there was a large trapdoor on the floor. He watched as it opened slowly after blue flame appeared in Hal's hand and he pressed it into a hole in the wall.

"Come on, Jack!" Hal laughed, he was completely opaque now that he was home. Jack jumped down and he saw that there was a cavern that stretched as far as the fields above. Trees were planted everywhere, orange lights hanging on their branches making an enchanted-looking forest. _No way!_ The trees! Candy grew on them! There were moving rag-doll like creatures, they all carried baskets or a some white rope, it was shiny. Hal stood by, letting Jack watch as the rag-dolls threw the white rope at the branches and with a tug, pulled the candy right off the branches, collecting them in the baskets. "You know the whole toilet paper on trees thing? They were half-right." Hal smirked. "Silk courtesy of the Spiders up top."

"Ew." Jack stuck his tongue out but laughed. "This is amazing!"

"Yea, thanks Jack, well, now you know how to find me."

"I can't believe Pitch let us go!"

"He didn't" Hal laughed, Jack didn't get it. "Okay, it wasn't just the Jack-O-Lantern sustaining me, Halloween spirit, remember? He still had a bit of 'Trick or Treat' in his mind. So-"

"This was the treat… the trick is for when I get back…" Jack groaned, as if Pitch would be that generous.

"Yea, hey, deal with it for the both of us, alright?" Hal smirked. "Now, I gotta get them to work."

"So I can come anytime, right?"

"Yea of course! But once you get back to Pitch thank him for me, alright? I'm guessing he doesn't owe me for the candy anymore. Him and his logic."

"You said it! Alright, I'll see you next time!" Jack waved before going back up the tunnels, slipping past the trapdoor before it clanged shut and past the gigantic spiders. He looked around before he spotted the rock formation and headed back out. He sighed, _might as well deal with Pitch today._

Strangely Pitch wasn't anywhere near Burgess, and the entrance to his lair was gone as well. But where it was supposed to be the Jack-O-Lantern was starting to flicker out. Jack looked around a bit more before shrugging, kneeling down to blow out the flame inside. He picked the Jack-O-Lantern, careful not to let frost cover it. He would keep it at his room at the North Pole. Checking again, it really seemed Pitch had disappeared, _I guess it's Pitch being Pitch. _He laughed, _he probably couldn't stand the thought of being nice for once._

* * *

><p>AN: I still feel really, really bad for the goof up yesterday so I posted this chapter early!

Now if I stop being a sad panda...

Pitch is, of course, the adorable boogeyman that cannot stand the thought of being a nice guy :3

Finally watched the Chinese dubbed version of RoTG!

Cantonese Toothiana: Sound older than the English version, Chinese Toothiana: Sounds younger at the start.

Lemme just say I melted. Pitch sounds awesome no matter what! *biased,biased* (9QWQ)9

And one or two lines in the Antartica scene had no feeling behind it lol. And one of the brothers... Claude and his bro... one had the voice of a girl at one point XD

Anyways!

Rubix and rabbits, signing out!


	9. Thanksgiving

It'd been about two weeks since Hal was sent back to his home, of course Jack had visited him almost everyday. Sadly Hal sill had work to do so his visits were still short."I'll see you next time, alright?"

"Yea, give them a real good snow day for me, eh?" Hal laughed, petting Haunt, one of the black cats he owned. Haunt had a leg missing, her front-left, but she was charming nonetheless. Jack actually liked Haunt and Spook, the latter was blind in her left eye. Of course there were the other two males, Rite and Streak, but they hadn't warmed up to him yet. The four had some form of handicap each but Hal said it was just a coincidence since he chose them for their personalities, and it just so happened the four best cats in the world were handicapped. Spook purred and nudged Jack's hand but he had to leave, so he pet her a last time before going.

"See ya!" Jack could drop in to see Pitch, _he should be back by now_. _Ah, the entrance was there. He was probably done sulking or whatever._ Jack snorted, _Pitch can never be a good guy consciously_.He dropped in, literally, passing the Nightmares. They were used to his presence already, although initially they would scare him just to get a snack. Of course after the first dozen frozen piles of sand they left him alone. "Pitch? Yo, Pitch, you there?" The shout echoed and some of the Nightmares snorted at him, annoyed. He laughed and gave them a look that just said, _Deal with it_ , before he headed to the library. Pitch spent way too much time in there than it was healthy, like seriously. He _must've_ finished all those books by _now, right?_

And there the Boogeyman was, in his usual spot reading another book. It was pretty big, and was probably older then Jack. " What is it, Jack…" He groaned, _woah, was that?_

" You wear glasses?!" Jack couldn't stop himself from laughing, " Where'd you even get _those?_" Despite what you think, the glasses looked like the newer types, it kind of fitted Pitch with it's more angular design. It looked pretty cool, but still, _the __**Boogeyman**__ wearing __**glasses?**_

"Yes, I do. Occasionally. This little slip-up in my vision will be gone soon. Now, what is it?" He growled, slamming the book shut and tipping the glasses down a bit.

"Thanksgiving party, apparently I'm invited this time!" Pitch sighed, Jack was jumping around happily, he was going to knock something over, he just knew it.

" That's all fine and good Jack, but this concerns me how?" Okay the grin the boy had on was unnerving at this point…

" Because you are too!" Jack laughed as Pitch gaped a little.

"And why would they do _that?_ Really Frost, this isn't that good of a prank to get me to North's place." The Boogeyman composed himself and rolled his eyes, annoyed.

"No, really! You are! After I told them I never knew about it because no one knew me, they said I should go looking around for the spirits that are like me, not so many believers and a- oh. Sorry." Jack smiled sheepishly, _yep, that was a bad one._ Pitch was growling at him now.

"Then shouldn't you go and find said spirits?" Pitch snapped at him, getting up and handing the book over to a Nightmare that had been standing by.

" Y-yea… I'll go soon, but still. I had to tell you you were invited so… will you be there?" Jack was really hoping Pitch would go, but then again after _that_, most likely not. He probably should stop hoping, he already knew Pitch was going to decline…

"I'll see." Jack was shocked when Pitch murmured it, he thought he might have imagined it.

"Really?"

"Not a yes, a maybe. I have work to do, Jack."

"O-okay… So… what are you doing?"

"Don't you have to be somewhere?"

"I'd like to hang with you." Jack grinned, time to be annoying. Pitch groaned, looked like his short break from stupidity was over.

"I have to train each and everyone one of the Nightmares, after what happened." Pitch said offhandedly, but Jack knew he was still thinking about the Nightmares' betrayal. "And… They're starting to become more sentient."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning sometimes I have to deal with a rowdy bunch of teenagers." Jack laughed.

"You sound like an old man." Pitch huffed at that, petting the Nightmare from before. The Nightmare King raised a brow when the Nightmare neighed and nuzzled him, trying to squeeze into the crook of his neck.

"No." He said sternly but it was still trying. "No! You are not-" It huffed and tried to lick his hand. "Stop- stop! No! You are not going- Would you stop!?" He snapped at it and it finally drew back, giving him a face. "Jack I'm blaming you."

"What!?" _He didn't even know what just happened! What did he have to do with it at all!?_ "What did _I_ do!?"

"That face. Look at it. Seems awfully familiar, doesn't it?" Pitch sneered. _Okay, so __**maybe**__ the horse was pouting. Sort of. Maybe. Yea._

Jack grunted and looked away while Pitch huffed. "So… what did it say?"

"She. Mares, Jack. She and the others wanted to go out for a run."

"You make it sound like some girls want to go out shopping. Pitch you sure you don't sound like a parent?" Jack teased. "So why not let them out?"

"We don't have that big a food source Jack." Pitch growled, _oh yea. _

"Heh, sorry."

"We have to watch how much each of us gets, we're rationing, in a way." Pitch sighed, they lived a bit harder compared to other spirits. "But, we are finding some leeway. Sanderson is letting off a bit so now they are a bit better. But I'm going to train them before I let them get close to it." The Nightmare had trotted over beside Jack and was leaning over to try biting his hoodie, of course Pitch wouldn't tell him that.

"Oh, we- HEY!" Jack yelped when the Nightmare held him a few feet off the ground, chewing his hoodie. It shook him when he tried to hit it with his staff. "Let go!" The Nightmare finally dropped him and he landed hard. He stood up and rubbed at his lower back wincing before looking up to glare at the Nightmare. Which was being pet by Pitch, was she smiling!?

"Good girl." Pitch cooed and when she leaned in to nuzzle him he didn't object. "Okay, maybe you can go out." Jack gaped before shooting him an annoyed look.

"Seriously? No, I'm not even surprised anymore." He grumbled, the Nightmare neighing happily and trotting out of the library to find her sisters.

"What?" Pitch had an innocent face on but they both knew what he mean. Jack sighed.

"So, where are they going?"

"Whatever isn't already taken, speaking of which, I need to go eat something." Pitch headed to the closest wall and Jack followed, the two going through the shadowgate with Jack smacking straight into something as usual.

"Ugh, how do those things WORK!?" Jack groaned but was silence by Pitch. It was night outside the window and Pitch was watching the cloud of gold in the distance.

"Do shut up, Frost. The child needs to stay asleep." Pitch growled and Jack watched with him as the cloud of gold moved away, Sandy was probably moving onto the next town. Making sure he was gone Pitch headed to the sand above the boy in the room. Jack sat by, clearly uncomfortable with watching something bad happen to a child. Pitch had already poisoned the dream with fear and the boy fidgeted and cried out. The boogeyman sighed, content with watching the Nightmare play out. If the Nightmare didn't take its own form and stayed as a normal nightmare it didn't require it's own food source. Jack was torn between stopping Pitch and just trying to sit still. Finally Pitch motioned to Jack to head to the wall and Jack looked at him questioningly.

"Move." The nightmare king hissed and Jack raised his hands before backing up. Pitch turned back to the boy and with a wave of his hand, took all the fear back, the golden sand retreating out the window to the Sandman. The boy sat up screaming, shaken from his Nightmare and Pitch hid in the shadows. Jack couldn't help himself from watching as the kid curled up a bit, unable to sleep before the wall behind him disappeared entirely and he ended up in another room, this time with another child. And Pitch was already heading for her.

"Pitch!" Jack called softly and the boogeyman's hand stopped short of poisoning the dream. Jack stuttered a bit, unable to speak properly and Pitch finally huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Go, Jack. If you can't watch this you might as well leave because I am certainly getting my meal today." Pitch motioned at the open window and Jack hesitated before leaving. _No matter how he spun it, Pitch was still the Boogeyman. He still fed on fears._

* * *

><p><em>AN: _Yes, I know, Christmas tomorrow

I'm posting said chapter tomorrow ;D

So enjoy this strange little Thanksgiving one for now.

And OH my GOD, one of the little baby bunnies have opened their eyes!

Rubix and rabbits out!


	10. Thanksgiving (2)

Note first: I wanted to post the chapters I had ready for Christmas this morning. However my entire laptop got corrupted so this is what I was able to salvage. Everything else will come tomorrow I suppose. Yes, this is going to lead up to something happening for 'Christmas'. Oh welp. Also

WTF Rubix 6029 words!? Wat

Onto the Chapter!

Also, no canon character pairing, a small OC pairing that isn't big at all. And the two goofs being jerks.

* * *

><p>Jack finally got to meeting Pitch the next day, heading to the entrance as soon as the sun started setting in Burgess. Of course he didn't expect the wave of Nightmares rushing him from behind and he could only yell as they swept him in. "What is happening!?"<p>

"Ah Jack." Pitch greeted him when they finally landed in the main room. Only with a load more Nightmares than usual.

"Pitch… what's happening?"

"The little gathering, thought I'd go." Pitch was petting the Nightmares and they were all filing in from different tunnels, standing in neat rows.

"Are you going to a party or going to war, Pitch. This isn't exactly friendly looking." Jack pointed out. Pitch just shrugged.

"I promised them a run."

"You're going to let them loose in the North Pole aren't you?" Jack groaned, if Bunny didn't attack Pitch, he was a summer spirit.

"Basically." A squad of Nightmares that arrived recently ran over, the lead stamping its feet. "Ah, there's our cue."

"Drama, much?" Jack sighed before perking up. "Hey Pitch, I was gonna ask North but why is this even a thing?"

"Honestly it's one of the few ' holidays' that isn't taken by a spirit so the others supposed they could celebrate it. Give their thanks and all that." Jack laughed a bit, Pitch just hated the others. He could see why so many spirits stayed away. "Although maybe one day a spirit of Thanksgiving will appear. Wonder how that would turn out."

"I think it'd be a girl." The two chattered with the Nightmares following, of course Pitch was already on one of the Nightmares but Jack refused, saying he could fly on his own. The Nightmares stopped before a tunnel, the entire mass of blacksand recoiling like a snake about to strike. Jack didn't notice it until Pitch had asked, "Ready?"

Once he replied with a nod and "What do you mean?" they rushed into the tunnel. Just as Jack got used to the complete darkness they exploded out of the tunnels and he saw that they were at the North Pole, heading to North's place. Jack let out a small 'Woah'. Far off was North's Workshop. But on the cliff of snow beside it a new tower was there with a domed glass top. "What?"

"North's workshop is bigger than you think, Jack. It's just a bonus that some parts of it can move." Pitch informed him, leaning forward a bit as the Nightmares sped up. They still had a long way to go but the Nightmares wanted to enjoy their run.

"It looks like you're going to be responsible for a siege on the place, Pitch." Jack laughed, the Nightmares were huddled closer due to the cold. Then Jack started noticing other swarms of who knows what, approaching the Russian Palace. "What's happening?"

"The other guests, Jack… Oh boy." Jack looked up when Pitch groaned and watch the strange pale green glow heading towards them. It took a while before he saw what it was.

"Hal!?" Said spirit was on a skeletal horse, with bits of its skin still there. The green glow was from the flame that emanated from its bones and behind the eye sockets of its skull. It acted as a mane and tail as well.

"Hey Jack! Thought I'd see you here. I heard about you inviting some others out." Hal waved, the skeletal horse running up beside them. Pitch's small army started veering away as the two talked.

"Yeah I was, how are you even here, I thought you'd be a ghost outside?"

"North's place has enough magic to keep me up, it's hard to explain."

"Okay, so, who's this?"

"It's a he, great stallion. He helps me out with the Headless rider thing. I call him Mint."

"What." Jack gave him a look. "No."

"What?"

"You have this cool looking horse, and you call him Mint? Seriously!?"

"Well yea- Mint! What is your problem!?" Mint was acting rebellious, starting to chase the Nightmares. It took Jack a minute to understand and he started laughing loudly. "Jack? What did you do to Mint?"

"Pitch, Pitch! Oh gods, Pitch!" Jack was laughing too hard and Pitch took a moment before he sent a Nightmare for him to ride. The two older spirits glanced to each other before watching Jack.

"Jack," Pitch started slowly, confused. "What is it?"

"Oh gods, ha! Okay, okay, wait." He let out a peal of laughter before he could stop laughing long enough to speak. "Pitch, Hal's horse over there is a stallion. Said stallion is going after the Nightmares." Pitch raised a brow at Jack and looked at Mint before looking at the herd of Nightmares with him. He finally got it and stared at Mint again. All the while Hal was asking Jack what was happening.

"Hallows, if you have not gotten it yet, stallion." Pitch pointed at Mint with a deadpan look. "Mares." He made a sweeping gesture at all his Nightmares, waiting for Hal to finally understand. When he did he almost fell off his steed, wide eyed.

"What!?"

"Yes. Jack hold on, you're going to fall off like that."

"Okay" Jack had on a goofy grin, watching Mint.

"Ah finally." They looked up when Pitch sighed, it looked like the barriers were coming down to let the others in. Jack knew there was some sort of barrier, he tried to get in before, but he didn't know there were _so_ many. One by one the barriers dissolved and the spirits entered. Mint flew ahead but was going too fast and smashed into one of the barriers before it was gone completely. When the stallion huffed and poked at the ground where it was the others laughed. Finally the spirits were reaching the large doors to North's workshop, and they started to mingle. With a loud grunt six yetis brought the doors open and the yetis greeted them, some bringing the spirits' things away. Hal handed the reins to a yeti and pet Mint before he was led away. Jack hovered and watched when the other spirits noticed Pitch, some backing off scared while others were wary. The moment the yetis saw him they stiffened before Phil stepped came up from inside, speaking in Yettish and he saw the horde of Nightmares. He paused for a moment before waving his arms about, ordering the yetis to greet the other spirits and he motioned at the Nightmares to another Yeti in a _How am I supposed to work with __**this**__, _manner. Pitch got off his Nightmare calmly, petting her while the ones on the outside of the herd neighed, occasionally one of them screeched and Jack would hear the squeak or short scream of one of the smaller spirits, frightened.

"You wouldn't mind if they stayed with me, would you?" Pitch asked, smiling softly, which of course unnerved everyone. He headed inside with the Nightmares before the yetis could say anything. Phil made to stop him before Pitch pet the closest Nightmare and said softly. "Tìhona," He paused before speaking louder, "sutx tutan." He pointed at the closest yeti and many of the spirits were alarmed when the heads of all the Nightmare snapped around to look straight at the yeti. Said yeti whined in fear a little, backing off. The Nightmares followed him with every step he took and he glanced around for help.

"Pitch…" Some of the spirits looked over to see Jack walking over to him, some thinking he was mad to approach the Nightmare King. Jack made to ask calmly before he suddenly stood up straight, crossing him arms and scolding him. "Cut it out already." The spirits gawked at Jack and were stunned even more when Pitch rolled his eyes with a quiet. "Alright, alright." Hal had to stop himself from bursting out laughing, looked like only he knew about the recent friendship.

Pitch glanced back at the frightened yeti and muttered like a scolded child. "They are not going to harm you, just lead them to the stables." The yeti was still nervous but started walking towards the stables, the Nightmares following him. Pitch whistled and three of them broke off from the herd to trot over. Pitch ignored the others and headed inside with Jack and Hal following. It took a while before the others snapped out of it, whispering to each other as they entered.

"Hey, I'll go get something to drink, see you, Jack."

"Alright." Hal flew off and Jack was left with Pitch as they headed through the hallway to a sort of ballroom. Soon he saw the elves running about in between the spirits' feet, occasionally tripping someone. Pitch had headed to a corner when Jack saw Tooth and he flew to meet her. Baby Tooth reached him first, cheeping happily, making him laugh.

"Hi, Jack! How are your teeth?" He knew not to try answering, she was already checking on them and Baby Tooth gave a, _Hey, what can you do?_, face.

"I'm good thanks for asking." He tilted his head a little, smiling.

"I didn't have to, your dental health is connected to your overall health you know. Healthy teeth and mouth is a healthy you." Tooth pointed out before grabbing his arm and pulling him along. "C'mon, we can go see North and Sandy."

"Where's Bunny?"

"He's still whining about cold feet, he'll be fine, big baby." The two laughed and North went to hug Jack when they found him.

"Jack, how are you?"

"I'm fine, North." Jack got out of the bear hug and dusted himself off.

"Good, we have plans, Tooth?"

"Jack, we were going to announce you being a Guardian today." Tooth hovered nervously, afraid Jack would be against it.

"What? Today? To all of them?" Jack was surprised. Sure he was happy they'd want to announce his new title but he wasn't good with crowds at all.

"It's okay if you don't want to, Jack." Tooth was reassuring, but he could sense a bit of disappointment.

"No,no. It's okay, sure, yeah. We could do that… But don't make me do any talking." Jack answered and Tooth smiled.

"Good, but first, we enjoy party!" North said happily before they heard a very familiar yell.

"What are you doing here!?" The glanced over to see Bunny face to face with Pitch. The older spirit took a sip from his drink calmly, watching the Pooka. Bunny swore he was going to hit him with one of his boomerangs if he kept up that annoyingly calm face.

"Go suck an egg, rabbit." Pitch was gone before Bunny had anytime to react, appearing on the other side of the room with his Nightmares. Before Bunny could even head towards him Sandy went over to calm him down. The other Guardians headed over to greet Pitch, who was watching them warily now.

"Pitch! Glad you came!" North exclaimed, the man was always jolly, much to Pitch's chagrin. It was annoying at times. Tooth had let out a soft, "Hi" and waved at him from behind Jack. As much as Pitch wanted to say it was because she was scared, she was more shy than anything. He sighed a little, "Yes, North. I wish to thank you for inviting me." Pitch was antisocial, anyone could tell you that, but he liked the few events he was welcome to, if not for the party then for the fear he could cause among the spirits.

"No problem, no problem! Ah, Cupid!" North went off to greet the other guests while Tooth hung around with Jack.

"Thanks for inviting me? Really, Pitch?" Jack teased and Pitch swatted at him like a fly, Tooth watching them and smiling when she saw how Pitch was a little more friendly, in a way.

After a while the Guardians mingled with the others, Jack going to meet Hal. Of course this meant no one saw Bunny as he hopped over to Pitch.

"Alright, mate. I hate to say this but I'm sorry alright? North didn't tell me you were coming…" Bunny scratched the back of his head, looking down. Pitch smirked, he could make this work very well in his favour but sighed, for some reason he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Apology accepted, rabbit. And apologies for the… comment."

"Yea, better than Jack calling me a Kangaroo."

"Accent?"

"Yea."

"And what does he call me, then? Eh?" Bunny laughed a bit when Pitch continued the conversation in his more natural British accent.

"He and that Halloween kid pranked me the other day, something about your accent turning Scottish?" Bunny teased, laughing at the thought.

"That explains it. What did he do to you?"

"No, no. What did he do to you to make you turn Scottish?" Bunny challenged and Pitch stayed quiet before answering. "He made the Nightmares come at me."

Bunny snorted before all out laughing, catching the attention of some other spirits.

"Eh, what's going on over here." The drunk voice of the Leprechaun reached them a he lumbered over.

"Alright, alright, what happened to you then." Pitch shot back, ignoring the drunk man. "And I better get an answer."

"I went after them… theÿ went past the river… They could fly."

"And you couldn't" Pitch smirked before laughing. Apparently the Leprechaun was sober enough to get it and laughed too, along with a few others that had gone closer.

"Hey they made _you_ smash _yourself_ with _your Nightmares_!" Once the other spirits got wind of this the two were laughed at together, although some other spirits called out how the two teens had pranked them too. At that point they were asked what happened to _them._

"Hey, what's up with Pitch?" Hal pointed at the corner of the room and Jack looked over.

"Woah." There was quite a crowd gathered there. Pitch wasn't the main guy, per say, but the spirits over there did talk or look over at him occasionally. The two started flying over. Jack saw the pattern way too late. He thrust his arm in front of Hal to stop him but by then most of the spirits had seen them.

"Jack, what's up?" Hal asked but Jack was about ready to fly straight out of the building.

"Frost, Hallows." Pitched smiled pleasantly, _yep, something is up, _Hal thought, confused, _but what? _"Nice of you to join us." _Oh. Oh snap._ Hal started backing up as well before Jack beat him to it, scrambling in the air before shooting off. The two flew out of the room, straight past North who was startled by the two almost bumping into him. He was going to ask what had happened only to see the crowd at the corner with Pitch smiling like a maniac in the centre.

"I…. I don't want to know." North grumbled before lumbering off to look for Tooth. A while later the spirits heard his booming voice, "Alright everyone! We have dinner, room is over there!" The spirits started heading to the dining room, Bunny heading to the front with the other Guardians as everyone settled down at the three long tables set up. Pitch took to a corner of the table, the three Nightmares with him heading to the corresponding corner, sitting there quietly. The group from earlier had dispersed but there was a worrying number of them crowding around where Jack and Hal sat.

Not a minute later yetis started filing out of where Pitch presumed the kitchen was, all carrying large platters of food. There seemed to be some signal given before the yetis lifted the metal cover simultaneously. Pitch hardly ever ate, that was a luxury he hadn't been able to afford for a _long_ time so he could hardly figure out where to start. The dragon hybrid beside him, Asian most likely, asked if he wanted a piece of meat he had taken. _Ah yes, traditions._ Pitch nodded and the dragon hybrids around the table started piling food onto his and others' plates. He ate what he could, slowly, gods knew what would happen if he gave his stomach more than it could take. Alcohol was starting to get passed around and Pitch could hardly say no to some good wine. Immortals could get the best wine, seeing as they could stay around long enough to have a taste of wine that was centuries old. Sipping his own glass he had to wait a moment, damn that was a good one. There was chatter around him and he answered the few questions thrown at him. He looked over at his Nightmares, honestly they looked way too bored. He motioned for them to come over and he gave them some of the food, some of the spirits watching curiously as the Nightmares ate the pieces of vegetable he threw at them. Once he noticed the small audience he smirked, grabbing a small chunk of beef and throwing it at the lead Nightmare. The other spirits had been confused when he grabbed the piece of meat and watched as it was thrown. Only to jerk back, seeing the Nightmare grow long fangs that would never fit in its mouth, the maw snapping shut. Some of the younger spirits slid off their chairs and headed to see the Nightmares. Among all the spirits' pets or minions, the Nightmares were the newest and most wanted to learn about them. Pitch decided he'd put off his attitude long enough and snapped at one of the young spirits when it tried to pet the lead Nightmare. Once the three detected his change of mood they growled in a weird way. This made the curious spirits back off, scared. Pitch sighed, the Nightmares relaxing with the small snack. There was many forms of fear, but fear of yourself was the best.

Jack shot out of the room with Hal once they noticed dinner was over, going to the globe room while the others headed back to the ballroom. There was music playing and some of the spirits got to dancing, some with their dates. Pitch scoffed as Cupid flitted about. As he watched he noticed the pattern of Cupid chatting to random spirits, flying alongside them. They subconsciously followed him step by step before he broke of the conversation, going off to another spirit to talk. Leaving them within a foot of a 'match'. Suddenly the little cherub headed straight to him. "No." He stopped the young boy before he said anything. "I am not going to follow you around."

The boy gaped at him a little before laughing. "No, no, Pitch. I couldn't find a match for you even if I tried."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"But, the little summer spirit, Saran, well one of her little friends have a crush on her."

"Really?" Pitch's voice was just full of mock curiosity, he was contemplating if he should let one of the Nightmares try to pull one of his wings off while he watched. Of course he'd have to get rid of the arrows first.

"And I was thinking if you could, you know, scare her a little. I'll make sure the closest person is little Ignis over there." Cupid winked and Pitch shuddered.

"First of all, why should I, second of all, tell me why I shouldn't make _little Ignis over there_ have Nightmares of rejection for all eternity?" Pitch drawled, petting the Nightmare that had gone up to stand beside him. It snorted and glared menacingly as Cupid backed off.

"Come now, Black, it's just a little favour." _Was he trying to use puppy eyes? With Jack's presence he was immune to anyone using it but him. Gods what was that supposed to mean._

"No." The young boy finally got the hint and left him alone, muttering something. He swore he heard 'forever alone' at one point but shrugged it off. Speaking of Jack, looks like him and Hal had gotten back, and North was leading him to the front of the room. Pitch watched curiously as North got everyone's attention.

"As off this year, Jack is Guardian! Chosen by Manny many months ago!" _Oh, that._ Pitch would normally be mad or irked by the thought of his defeat but at that point he'd given up on it. _Let the boy have his moment._ Once North's announcement ended, _gods who knew the man could give a speech like that_, Pitch heard someone chant Jack's name and found Hal to be the source. Some other spirits, some he'd never seen before, joined in and the other spirits were eventually influenced to do the same. Pitch stayed silent of course, but he watched Jack silently, _gods the boy was turning cyan with how much he was blushing._ That was until he heard someone muttering digruntedly. He turned his head to see the same summer spirit, shooting glares at Jack while one of the fire spirits that hung around with her listened.

Jack finally escaped the spotlight and the party continued, Tooth cooing at how shy he was and cute he acted while Baby Tooth practically screamed, _Seriously!?_ At them both. After the other Guardians and Hal poked fun at him he searched the crowd. He was fairly certain Pitch would have left by now, he didn't see him at dinner but surprisingly found the man in the corner, glowering at someone. _Sheesh, who pissed him off today?_ Before he could find the receiver of the mother of all glares, one of the spirits he downright loathed came up to him.

"Guardian, huh, Frostbite?" There was Saran, acting all high and mighty as her little butler of a fire spirit stayed by her side.

He decided to play it off, leaning on his staff. "Yea, _cool_ right?" Oh how he loved annoying her with the worst jokes he could come up with. The young blonde snorted.

"Shut up you little troll. You know you're practically useless, kids didn't even know you existed until the little fiasco during Easter. Mother didn't create you, winter was doing fine on its own without you making random blizzards. You weren't even supposed to be in charge of winter. And now you're hanging out with these losers and that creep. Couldn't do better, could you?" Jack was about to growl, she'd been jabbing at his chest and pushing him up against the wall. Until a black maw came and snapped at her hair, effectively tugging her up as it pretty much swallowed the hair. She screamed loudly, swatting in vain of trying to hit whatever was trying to eat her. Most of the spirits were startled and watched as Pitch walked through the crowd calmly, grabbing Jack's shoulder and leading him towards the more secluded balcony. They almost made it to the doors before Ignis flew up in front of them, positively fuming.

"Let her go, right now! Control your stupid horses!" The flame spirit yelled and Pitch disregarded him, shoving Jack outside onto the balcony before facing him.

"Oh I'm sorry, they wanted to see if they could eat utter nonsense. Thought they'd make themselves more… lethal." He looked past the boy at the scene. Some of the spirits wanted to help Saran but were stopped by the other two Nightmares. "Tìhona" He cooed, "tungzup sngel" The Nightmare dropped the blonde and trotted over with its companions, turning into a semi solid state as it swirled around Pitch. "Now, leave us alone." He walked out to the balcony, leaving the boy gaping with the Nightmares as guards. His breath turned to fog in front of him, it was colder outside, obviously, but there was a sort of forcefield that kept it warm enough.

"What was that about? And why am I locked outside?" Jack complained, he was grateful for Pitch's help but still. It made him look like a little kid to be taken care of.

"That was my Nightmares choosing a target to follow for eternity." Pitch answered, bored, like he was talking about a pest in his lair.

"… Okay fine. Hey I thought you'd be gone by now."

"You wound me, Frost. I didn't know you wanted me gone. I suppose I'll slink off back to the shadows." Pitch gave a fake pout, already halfway into the shadow realm.

"With your tail between your legs?"

"Hey!" Jack laughed, he felt a load better now. The two were silent for a while before Jack said quietly. "Thanks, Pitch."

When Pitch gave no sign of him hearing him he leaned over and jerked back. Pitch's pupil was practically gone and Jack got the goosebumps. "Pitch?" He said softly, freaked. Finally Pitch's pupil went back to normal and he shot Jack an annoyed look.

"What."

"Er… what happened to you?"

"Enjoying the music inside. I was thinking if it was worth dealing with a room of imbeciles for the sake of good music but I found a loophole."

"How…"

"How many Nightmares, Jack?" It took a moment before Jack realized he couldn't see the third Nightmare anywhere before it formed between the other two at the door to the balcony, still blocking the way out.

"Oh… okay… Aw come on Pitch, not again." Pitch was 'gone' again, _Gods that just plain looked creepy!_ Then he noticed Pitch smirking a little and the Boogeyman turned his head to face Jack, pupils still little pinpricks of black in the silver-gold. His smirk was only visible on the left side of his face, how he managed that was a mystery.

"That insufferable summer spirit is watching us." Pitch said softly through the side of his mouth.

"And?" Jack raised a brow, honestly confused.

"You must've watched plenty of movies by now, what happens on the balcony when people are alone?" Jack gagged.

"Ew!"

"Enough of that, Jack, don't change your expression. Calm yourself."

"What are you trying to say with _that!?"_

" It's been centuries since I had a chance like this. Oh look, the Leprechaun is joining in."

"Pitch… I'm all for a good joke but I am not sacrificing _that_ much."

The Nightmare king scoffed, "No need to. Let's play a game." _Okay now he was all out smirking._

"Pitch…" Jack could sense Pitch wanted to go for this but honestly how far was he going to go? "What do you mean?"

"A simple game. A head-butting one." Jack was confused and a little alarmed. "Close your eyes Jack, let's make this realistic, eh?"

"Aw heck no. No. No." Pitch's whole blind eye thing was freaking him out when he leaned a little closer.

"Fine, I'll explain the rules. That way you'll understand I'm not ready to sacrifice my reputation either." Pitch was pouting, _Gods, the others are going to kill me. I'm hanging around with the Boogeyman enough to __**influence**__ him._ "This simple little head-butt game, well. You have to close your eyes and lean in, but you can not back up. If your forehead hits mine on your move, it becomes my turn."

"And…."

"And I get to headbutt you as hard as I wish. Up to it?" His pupils were back but at this point he didn't know if it was better with him watching him with that insufferable smirk.

But when did Jack Frost turn down a chance to do something to Pitch? "Alright, challenge accepted." He screwed his eyes shut and heard Pitch scoff. "You look like someone's going to stab you, relax, sheesh." He heard a bit of shuffling before Pitch told him it was his turn.

Jack leaned in a small bit, with the usual nervousness of someone playing a new game. "Heh, their eyes are the size of saucers. No, don't laugh. Really, Jack, you must learn how to control yourself better." He rolled his eyes at that and after some shuffling it was his turn again.

Jack moved in as much as he could, estimating with how close they were initially and the sound Pitch moving. Then he bumped into Pitch and almost jerked back, held in place by _something_. He squeaked and was going to punch Pitch for his chuckle.

"Check. Mate." Jack scrunched up his face in a wince when he felt Pitch move away only to head-butt him. Hard. Jack let out a yell and grabbed his forehead, falling off the railing onto the balcony while Pitch roared with laughter. He groaned and rolled around a bit, holding his head.

"Damnit, Pitch! That hurt!"

"Do try to understand the game better. Oh, Rabbit incoming." Jack scrambled up, letting go of his head and glaring at Pitch before looking over to Bunny when he burst out the doors. He let his playful grin back on his face, leaning on the railing.

"Sup, Bunny." Pitch was proud of the boy finally being able to _act_, of course he wouldn't say it.

"Alright, what was going on here?" Bunny pointed at Jack before moving to glare at Pitch.

"Nothing, Rabbit. Now, I think we've gotten enough air. Jack, would you care to join me inside?" Pitch shoved past Bunny and motioned for Jack to go first. The winter spirit could barely hold in his laughter and floated in calmly, the Nightmares guarding him as he went past Saran and the others' bewildered faces. He stayed over in a corner and waited a while before Pitch came sauntering over.

"Well done, Frost." Pitch said softly, hiding his face behind his glass of wine.

"Not bad yourself."

"Please Jack, I'm a professional." Jack snorted.

"Yea right." Jack was grateful for the Nightmares trotting around them, blocking the other spirits' view of him for the most part. "We are never going to hear the end of this."

"But the truth will be our little secret." Pitch smirked before snapping up, his head jerking to look to the hallway, the Nightmares doing the same at the same time.

"Pitch, what's up?" The Boogeyman ignored him and started walking towards the hallway, almost possessed, with his Nightmares. That was until Saran and Ignis came up to him, arms crossed.

"Pitch," she said simply, although anyone could tell she was fuming from earlier. She sneered down at him as she floated just above him. "Sucking up to that clown now, eh? What, all those kids scared of dying during winter getting to you?" She leaned down and prodded at his chest. "Or is it because he went down that pit of a lair to drag what was left to you up here?"

Pitch's eyes refocused after a while and stared at the young spirit. She smirked, thinking he was speechless from the insult until he walked right past her.

"H-hey! Get back here!" When he ignored her further she yelled. "Come back here you worthless shade!" She went up to him when he stopped. "Yea, the world would be better off without you, you know. All of us know you were just some sort of mistake. Nightmare King, as if. You're just with Jack because no one believes in you two sad excuses of a spirit."

Pitch turned to regard her with a brow raised. She smirked and stood back up straight, letting out a snarky laugh. Jack knew that she was holding her bleeding mouth the next second. It took everyone a minute to realize what had happened, shuffling through the mental image of what had happened in slow-motion. In a swift move, Pitch had grabbed her collar and pulled her in for a punch in the face. She was sitting on the ground now, staring at the blood on her hand, shaking. Everyone looked up to see Pitch already gone with his Nightmares.

The silence was broken after a long while, Ignis scrambling to get some tissue for her and helping her out of the ballroom. Noone dared to go after the Boogeyman either but they still remembered the blood on his fist as he'd left the room. It was a little more awkward after that but after a while the party was back. Jack saw some spirits heading over to North, giving their own versions of a wishlist. Noone was really watching him now so he decided to go after Pitch, he did defend him. Sort of.

After flying about the hallways he asked a yeti if they'd seen Pitch and found he was at the stables. There he was met with a swarm of Nightmares just swirling around Pitch as he moved about. The yetis and other spiritual animals whined, some playing aggressive but not quite knowing what to do without their companions. Surprisingly a yeti_, was that the one from earlier?_, was standing calmly with Pitch.  
>"Now keep your hand there." Pitch left the yeti's hand hanging in the air before outright singing, "<em>Tìhona"<em> One of the Nightmares got closer to the two, pawing at the ground. " 'Eylanay" The Nightmare narrowed its eyes at the yeti, analyzing him before snorting and padding up to him, settling its muzzle in its outstretched hand. "Sìltsan, sìltsan" Pitch cooed at the Nightmare before it backed off again. The yeti nodded in thanks, honestly happy about the experience, before walking off. Phil was standing by and walked away with the other yeti.

"Woah, can you get the Nightmares to like me too?" Pitch glanced at Jack.

"No."

"Aw come on!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?" The two continued for quite a while before there was the loud sound of metal clanging far away.

"Ah, looks like the party's over…" Pitch muttered but pushed away the Nightmares when they packed together even more tightly around him. "No. No. Jack!"

"What did I do!?"

"What do you thi- No. Stop. All of you. No." The Nightmares finally relented, snorting and shaking their heads simultaneously in annoyance. The Boogeyman relented. " Kä pawm, pawm." He grunted and the Nightmares seemed to be happier.

"What do they want this time?" Jack asked, curious. He was starting to like the Nightmares a little.

"They wish to race. They _know_ I am not one to ask…" Pitch threw his hands up when the Nightmares grunted at him, daring him to go back on his promise.

"I can do it, it'll be awesome!" Jack leaned in. "But who do they wanna race?" The Nightmares exploded in sound, stamping their feet. When the sound finally died down Pitch sighed. He looked at Jack, exasperated. "Everyone."

Jack's eyes widened. That. Would. Be. AWESOME. Before Pitch could say anything he shot off, looking for North. By the time Pitch got to the ballroom the other spirits stared at him.

"What took you so long, Pitch? We were going to get our little friends!" The Leprechaun yelled from the side and Hal flew up to him.

"Yea, I'm going to get Mint." Apparently North had announced the idea of a race, all around the mountain range and almost all the spirits had agreed. The contestants were directed out of a hole in the roof of the glass dome, after one of the glass panels were removed. The stopped at a sort of runway closeby, of course there were only so many spirits that could fit there so most floated closeby. North had his reindeer and sled brought out while Jack watched excitedly, flying about with Tooth flitting about with him.

"Alright, everyone! Race will begin soon! But, rules!" North bellowed and the younger, more childish spirits groaned. "Spirits that can fly, no shortcuts! Follow the path! We want to be fair to non-fliers, yes?" The spirits yelled back in confirmation and North continued listing the rules, mostly no smashing into anyone. Blocking them, however was fine. Of course some complained about how the spirits with a bigger 'swarm'could block others easily but it was more of a 'too bad for you' thing in the end.

"Ready?" North yelled. Jack could see everyone gripping the reins tightly, or stretch their wings a last time. "Set!" He gripped his own staff tightly, staring ahead. Sandy had a tightly-packed ball of dreamsand, ready to throw in the air as the signal. Sandy watched them all carefully before the ' bomb' was thrown into the air, exploding like a firework.

* * *

><p>AN: So! I ended that there. Now time to retype everything :/ *pushes you towards 13bluebananas' drabble fic* Now go get distracte- I mean check out that drabble series and _her_ Christmas special -since I couldn't give you guys that- it's good. Now, go.

As usual, prompts are welcome cos srsly my ideas WILL run out sooner or later. And I gotta play with my cousins, not ignore my entire family like a jerk. I am _so going to feed. And they're both in Gold!_

Rubix and rabbits, out!

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><p><strong>Original <strong>: Translation

**"Tìhona," He paused before speaking louder, "sutx tutan."** : "Darling," He paused before speaking louder, "follow him."

**"Tìhona" He cooed, "tungzup sngel" The Nightmare dropped the blonde and trotted over with its companions, turning into a semi solid state as it swirled around Pitch. **: "Darling" He cooed, "drop the garbage" The Nightmare dropped the blonde and trotted over with its companions, turning into a semi solid state as it swirled around Pitch.

**Pitch left the yeti's hand hanging in the air before outright singing, "_Tìhona"_ One of the Nightmares got closer to the two, pawing at the ground. " 'Eylanay" **: Pitch left the yeti's hand hanging in the air before outright singing, "_Darling"_ One of the Nightmares got closer to the two, pawing at the ground. " Ally."

**"Sìltsan, sìltsan" Pitch cooed at the Nightmare before it backed off again. **: "Good, good" Pitch cooed at the Nightmare before it backed off again.


	11. Race

Jack knew Tooth was fast. From the last time she went after Pitch he knew she was. But he could safely say he wasn't the only one left in the dust. The Autumn spirit with him had gaped at him before the both of them shot after her.

It was barely a minute when everyone got out of the somewhat serious mood, laughing in glee at the feel of wind rushing past them all. Jack could just _feel_ the energy in the entire mass of spirits, the 'magic'. Gods he was getting goosebumps, it was just energy, different energies weaving in and out and around each other, all speeding around the mountain ridge and it was just _alive! This was what watched over this Earth and he was proud to be one of them._

It took a while before he realized some of the tiny spirits were right behind him, mostly Mother Nature's small pixies. Mother Nature herself wasn't there, but her smaller 'minion's were allowed here. _They were tagging along using Wind! That wasn't fair!_ He couldn't get Wind to just stop, however, that would mean him falling out of the air as well. But he could use one of the rules. Specifically the, you can shoot, one. Noone was allowed to freeze someone else in their tracks, _almost everyone had stared at him then_, but you could slow them down. He pointed his staff in the middle of the crowd and fired after the pixies realized and split up. He immediately shot off to the side so the pixies couldn't use the Wind. Just as he made it away he was suddenly falling. He almost hit the floor before Wind picked him up again before he realize Saran was right above him. _He'd accidentally gotten into the Summer breeze!_ She was already glaring at him for trying to use her Wind, not like he could, before she held her hand out to blast at him. His eyes widened before he just stopped and shot backwards, making a big circle to avoid her.

Now that Jack was at the edge of the group of spirits, he could see who was up ahead. On the ground it seemed like it was… Bunny!? Well, he wasn't kidding when he said to not race a rabbit… But as for those in the air he could see Tooth being outmatched by the giant mass of blacksand, a fully formed Nightmare with Pitch at its head. And then North arrived, going right past the Nightmares with ease. Jack could hear Pitch scream with fury and laughed. The spirits up ahead were all focused on winning and it was getting to the hard part. Down into a sort of labyrinth, with random spikes of Earth that jutted out, making an obstacle course.

Jack felt the heat before the fireball was even close to him and dodged in time so it hit the stone wall beside him. "Hey, what are you trying to do, make an avalanche!?" He yelled back behind him and paled. The whole pack of dragons were behind him, the Western and Eastern. The former were grinning at him while the latter had the smuggest faces on. The spirits around him saw them as well and there was a collective "Eeep!" before they darted in different directions, making a free space for the dragons to move forward. _Okay, now this is the race._ Jack swung his staff under him and jumped on it like a waveboard, crouching as he weaved around the spirits in front of him, Wind pushing him faster and faster.

He knew he was fast. He could easily outrun anyone. But Bunny hated the fact that that meant the pack of werewolves would be running right behind him. They obviously wouldn't kill him but his instincts just _screamed_ _**predator!**_ So he kept on running like any sane rabbit would with a pack of snarling, _okay they weren't but that was how any rabbit would see a wolf pack, _right behind him. The ground shook and he looked up to see snow being sprayed in the air. _Was that an explosion!? What were they doing up there!?_ He jumped off the closest wall to avoid the crater and heard yelps when a couple of werewolves fell in. He chortled, _no one should race a rabbit. _And there was that stupid howl of theirs! He didn't care how much they enjoyed the 'hunt' it made him panic and almost stumble! The Pooka looked up and smirked, North was still ahead of the Boogeyman. The Nightmare King must've been insulted that he was being beat by the 'fat man'. Someone needed to take him down a notch anyways. He was startled however when Pitch pretty much fell off his Nightmare into the blacksand. The lead Nightmare disintegrated as well and he wasn't the only spirit that watched, unsure if Pitch had come to harm. Then he saw the large flaming gold eye that appeared as the blacksand shifted about. No. Possible. Way. Bunny dodged the next stalagmite as everyone passed through the hole in the mountain, it was darker here and harder to see, so most used the light of the flame spirits or any glowing objects anyone had. Practically everyone was following the golden glow on both sides of the wall that the titan Nightmare's gave off, though. The lower half of the Nightmare's body was formed by the time everyone got out of the cave, the mane still wisps of blacksand. Of course the Nightmares, _or Nightmare?_, passed the cave easily, what with them being night creatures.

"Is that fair!?" Jack found Bunny when he flew to the front and bottom of the crowd and asked.

"I don't think so, mate! What do you think he's doing in there!?" Bunny yelled back and the two dodged another object, _was that a smoke bomb!?_ It was the last bend, two more mountains, one to go over and the second had a cave system like the earlier. The Titan Nightmare had its neck arched, head occasionally shaking, snorting, still glaring ahead with all its focus. Everyone veered up as they climbed upwards, Bunny using every spot he could get land on the face of the mountain. The Nightmare had gotten a bit smaller, becoming more compact as the blacksand was concentrated into its was getting close to the peak, and North. Jack swore he heard Pitch's laugh echo from the Nightmare when it's eye was right beside North. Then a volley of fireballs was shot straight into the Nightmare. The sand moved away and back like a swarm of fish when a shark came through. Jack hoped he'd be able to see Pitch but it seemed as though he _was_ the Nightmare at this point. It jumped straight over the peak, hunching down to slide down the mountain, it's hooves going straight past the ridges. North was shouting at Pitch, though Jack couldn't hear what, he was laughing too. With another tug at the reins, the sled went past the Nightmare and cleared it and many of the spirits laughed at the startled look it gave.

North was proud of his reindeer, he could only leave gifts throughout the world during Christmas thanks to all of them and they always did a good job. He could tell they were enjoying the race, it was a way for them to prove themselves and get ready for the real run on Christmas. North heard a collective gasp from everyone behind him and turned, only to see the large maw opening wide, fangs forming.

The spirits remembered what happened the last time the Nightmare grew fangs at dinner. North was fresh meat. But no one could do anything as the jaws snapped shut. Some of the spirits let out screams but there wasn't any sound of wood being smashed.

North had braced himself for the impact but was surprised when he was in a sort of room, the sand moving constantly. He calmed down his reindeer as the sand continued to go past. The air here was still and he briefly wondered if Pitch had cheated and teleported him behind. That theory was gone when everything seemed to explode. The sand separated before coming together in the shape of the Nightmare in front of him. _Oh._North couldn't help but laugh. "Nice one, Pitch, very nice!"

* * *

><p>Just before the Nightmare was attacked it broke apart, swirling, before forming again. But now with North and his sleigh behind it's head. Who was laughing. Everyone sighed in relief before getting back to trying to beat the Nightmare. Bunny had to jump around a lot, avoiding being stomped by the hooves but from what he saw he guessed he wouldn't be harmed. But the holes left in the ground by the Nightmare was still unnerving him. The cave was coming up and Tooth had beaten North at that point, laughing while her faeries trilled. Hal was right behind her , contesting against a water spirit. <em>So that's where the smokebombs came from!<em> He saw Jack flying up to the other teen and groaned. The spirits around them were on high alert, hearing the two yell and cheer. Looked like an alliance had been made. Bunny winced when the first smokebombs were thrown with the Wind pushing it further, slowing some of the dragons down.

It was dark now, but the glow from Hal's head was good enough for Jack, he had a hand gripping Mint's rein as well, shooting randomly at any light he saw. The two had pretty much given up on chasing Pitch, he swore the Boogeyman wasn't playing fair.

"What a show-off!" Hal yelled and Jack looked up, the golden eyes of the Nightmare was gone again, was he changing _again!?_

"I think Bunny would call him a show-pony." Jack yelled back and the two laughed. They could tease Pitch on that later. It was getting brighter as they approached the end of the cave although he heard some spirits slamming into rock since the main source of light that knew where it was going was gone. Hal had to trust Mint with his night vision but now it would be easier. Jack got of his 'ride' and flew beside him, returning to the way he stood on his staff like a skateboard. Now that they could see it better, the Nightmare was gone, in face the sand was loose, almost spread out. Jack started looking for Pitch among the clumps of sand. _Where was he?_

_Was the sand… spinning?_ Hal watched carefully, it looked like the sand was creating a vortex. _What was Pitch doing?_ He wondered how many tricks Pitch had up his sleeve. He probably just wanted to show off his creation. The vortex spun faster and faster and just as the last spirit cleared the cave it tightened in the form of a viper, thrusting itself towards the Russian Palace, hissing. It hit the ground once it reached where they'd decided the finish line was, coiling up just as Bunny ran past it as well with the werewolves. Everyone gathered soon after, the dragons still hyped up and blasting fire. The younger spirits were all screaming happily, chasing each other in the air and on the ground. Bunny sniffed and one of the Eastern Dragons morphed back to their hybrid state, setting the pearl he had on fire and setting it close to Bunny. The Pooka thanked him and warmed his feet up. He looked up and saw Jack already throwing snowballs at people. It looked like he'd already started a snowball fight, spirits flying low to scoop up snow to throw. The older spirits stood by, cooling down after the race. Tooth was sitting with the Autumn and Spring spirits, her faeries perched on every available shoulder or head or wing. The three girls laughed and joked and chatted and watched the younger spirits. After a while, everyone's adrenaline wore off. The large snake had morphed slowly back into the shape of a Nightmare, though Pitch was still nowhere to be seen. It was trotting around happily, thought that was disturbing to see. They could only guess it was the Nightmares prancing around although the thought of Pitch being behind it was hilarious. It would be much like him to do it, proud of his win.

"Hey Pitch! You in there!?" Jack was yelling at the Nightmare, not two feet from it's ear. It snapped at him but he recognized that annoyed look easily. The other spirits were curious as well on how the _thing_ worked. "So, are you like, in there controlling this thing? Or are you the Nightmare?" The Nightmare folded its ears down, still glaring at him. _Stop yelling!_ They could practically read it in its eyes. "Alright, alright. Seriously though. Because if you are it, you've been prancing around like a little pony for the past ten minutes." The spirits laughed and Pitch, they were just going to address it as such, glowered. "What?" Jack shrugged and tapped at it's nose. "So, are you coming out anytime soon, or?" It neighed and threw its head about. "I'll take that as a no?" And Pitch was back to acting… like a pony. "Anyone got a camera!? Like, anyone!?" Pitch seemed to snap out of it, ready to snag Jack out of the air. "Alright, alright. Go do your… thing."

"You sure that's Pitch?"

"You sure we can't film him? This is way too good."

"We **need** to film this."

Everyone was ready to leave after a while, saying their goodbyes and thanking North for inviting them. For some odd reason, Pitch allowed some to sit on his back, which of course could hold about twenty of them.

"This is definitely not Pitch." Noone could really figure out how much of Pitch's consciousness was present, or if he could truly act this way, or if he was acting. In the end everyone agreed that they could live with this Pitch, but it would make the world better to have it on tape.

"Hey Jack… do you think he'll listen to someone?" Hal asked and the others sat up at the thought.

"What do you mean? Pitch'll never listen to anyone."

"That ain't exactly Pitch, now is it?" Hal pointed out. The other spirits were staring at Pitch and the Spring spirit sitting further away. "Hey, Anastasia, right?" The Spring spirit nodded. "Think you can try?"

Anastasia was one of the best with animals, besides Mother Nature of course, but only with a few animals. "I'll try, but I don't want to make him do anything he won't like…"

"I don't think the normal Pitch would be doing that." Said Nightmare had laid his, _oh gods what if he was a she!?,_ head on the ground, letting the spirits play around on and around him. _Was the Autumn spirit trying to brai- gods this was torture not to film._

"Okay." Ana, as she told them to call her, walked towards the giant Nightmare, catching its attention. "Hey… Pitch…" The Nightmare lifted its head off the ground, growling at her and making her shoot back. He focused on her before making a motion akin to rolling his eyes, lying back down. "Pitch? Could you stand up, please?" It was staring at her, seeming to think, before it stood up although it had a look, as if asking why. "Okay, uh. Guys?"

"Make him roll over!" Hal shouted and the others laughed.

Before Ana could give the order, the Nightmare bent its head down to glare at Hal. The Halloween spirit gulped, _that was definitely Pitch in there._ Its nostrils flared and he heard a growl. "Okay I'm out! Bye, Jack!" He was on Mint and off before anyone could do anything.

Pitch seemed to settle back down, strangely allowing the spirits to play around, still. "Hey Pitch!" Jack floated up to it's left eye, hands on his hips. "Play nice!" He wagged a finger at him like he was scolding a child and Ana giggled. Pitch made a low sound, almost annoyed, before turning his head to look away. "Hey, listen to me when I'm talking to you!" Jack flew up to pull at his ear playfully and Ana watched as Pitch flicked his other ear.

"He really likes you, doesn't he?" Pitch snapped his head to look at her, Jack doing the same.

"What do you mean? He's just a big jerk most of the time." Jack complained, sitting on the top of his mane now. Pitch looked oddly pleased.

"No, he likes you." Jack slid off his muzzle and floated right up to her. "I don't see him letting anyone pulling at his ear like that."

"Oh really." Jack smirked, turning. "Hey Pitch, I didn't know you car- Where'd he go." The other spirits shrugged.

"He kinda got up and left…" One of the leaf spirits with Ana shrugged.

"Typical." Jack huffed and Ana laughed.

"From what he's done and what you've said, he sounds like a big softie to me."

"Yea, and he calls himself the Nightmare King."

Jack snickered, "Oh he's a nightmare alright. A nightmare to take care of."

"Who froze when a certain Summer spirit came up to you, Frost?" Jack screamed, kinda, when the Boogeyman appeared right behind him.

"Hey Pitch." _That Spring spirit was way too confident for his liking._

"Oh my reputation, it burns." Pitch had a hand to his chest dramatically. "Now if you don't mind, shouldn't you all be going home?" He asked the teens.

"I still say you sound like a parent, Pitch." Jack teased and pointed at the Nightmares that appeared. "I think they agree, amiright, girls?" He smiled when they stamped their feet and neighed in agreement. Pitch was facepalming at this point.

"So much for loyalty. Goodbye Frost." Pitch gripped the closest Nightmare's rein and led them back to the shadows.

"See you tomorrow, Pitch!" Jack yelled back and he could hear the groan. Ana said goodbye and brought her flora spirits away, and soon the others left as well. Jack watched the yetis cleaning up the place and went back to the guest room that had become his. He found North and said goodnight before going to bed. That was the most fun he'd had with spirits in a really long time.

But he still couldn't believe Tooth was that fast.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry about this chapter, I have this weird, thing. Where I just adore the feeling of a race. That feeling of just, forward, faster, wind, rush, bend , turn, spin. I've been dreaming about just animating something like that. I've drawn those sorta scenes before too, I just adore it. But since I had the chance to write it... Bam, I'm happy! Mostly, racing and you don't get tired, just endless energy, no pain in the muscles and stuff. Probably good that I never get a driving license... yea. But of course I could never run, first of I'm pretty fat lol, and I have a bit of anaemia, can never run without getting tired almost instantly. "Run slowly," they said, "jog, keep a slow pace" they said. It does not work for me. I WILL get tired whether I run fast or slow. So for the PE tests I have to just sprint. And walk the rest of the way. Of course I fail every year.

Okay enough ranting. Also Pitch is a pony. Pitch is best pony. Pony. *has drawn Rule 85 Pitch*

Shameless self-advertisement: http : art /Pony-Pitch-Black-sketches-502693099

Powered by: Kcirtap28 - Season 1-4 Medley


	12. A little help

"What do you mean I have to go get Pitch!?" Bunny exclaimed, nose twitching, eyeing the other Guardians like they were mad. Tooth flew up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder calmingly.

"We can't let Jack go, he'll say more than he should, you know that." Sandy nodded and flashed some images, _the two trust each other more than they'd admit, Jack would say too much._ Bunny groaned, his ears lowering.

"Fine. Fine."The Pooka grumbled.

"Good, my faeries will continue looking through my library, Sandy, you can go through North's with Jack. You'll have to make sure he actually searches." Tooth nodded to Bunny before turning to Sandy. The Sandman held a thumbs up before flashing some images again, _Jack is a good person, he's probably already searching. He won't fool around with something like this._

Bunny had already left by then, passing by his Warren to make sure the Stone statues were kept on guard before he headed to Burgess. Once Pitch had gotten to a decent level of power, he's own barrier had come on, of course it hadn't sat well with the Guardians at first, until Jack could convince them Pitch hadn't taken Burgess as his own feeding grounds like the vampires did with certain villages, turning them into their personal farms. Pitch had been insulted with the mere mention of it, in fact. Bracing himself as he approached the entrance, Bunny hopped in and felt his ability to summon his own portals disappear. There was no way to create his own tunnels to escape in here. Jack had told him that Pitch's lair was still plain caverns after his drop in power but when he reached the end of the tunnel there were upside down staircases and pathways that were placed about, most leading nowhere.

"What are you doing here , Rabbit?" Bunny spun around, Pitch wasn't in a solid form so his voice echoed from all around. Bunny twitched his nose, focusing on every moment. "Well?"

Bunny spun again and Pitch was there, hands behind his back as he examined the Easter Bunny. "Wait, I can assure you Frost isn't hiding here. Though I would love to here what he did to you." Bunny shook his head and looked down, thinking carefully before speaking but he was cut off. "No, wait… Too late, too late… Too late, they're sick. You're scared… You're scared Christmas will be ruined, that North will not be believed in this year… Why?" Pitch stopped after circling the Pooka, abruptly turning to stare at him, head tilted. He answered himself, smirking. "There's a problem, you've come to me for help. Oh look, at least you have the decency to be scared."

"Scared of you?" Bunny scoffed. "Hardly."

"Oh, but you are. That I reject helping you, that I keep you in here when whatever you need is right here."

"You wouldn't dare." Bunny growled, grip tightening on his boomerangs as he pointed them at the Boogeyman.

"Really? How would you know?" Bunny was starting to think he'd practically just turned himself in to Pitch as a free hostage.

"Jack." Pitch's face didn't change a bit, but Bunny was sure Pitch must've at least returned a bit of Jack's will to be friends. Pitch snarled and Bunny loosened up a bit. _He knew it._

"Too easy anyways." Pitch mumbled. "Fine, what are you looking for. Although I can't see why you didn't send Frost. Has he been injured?" Pitch turned his head to regard Bunny, sounding almost pleased that Frost might've been injured but Bunny could tell he was just trying to hide his being concerned.

"No, but, Jack told us you have a library, and I need to look for something."

"And why should I, first of all, let you close to be collection, and second of all, help North." Bunny groaned.

"Look, I hate to be saying this but you're our last chance to fix this." Bunny said, _gods he hated Pitch._

"Fix what?" Pitch took an innocent tone. "No, wait, you won't tell me, will you? That's why Jack isn't here, he'd break faster. I highly doubt he'd sit down long enough in a library." Bunny groaned in frustration.

"Y'know what? I'm leaving, if you aren't gonna help us, I might as well go back." Bunny yelled, already turning to leave.

"Come now, Rabbit. Let's make a deal, you tell me why you need my books, and I _might _help to make sure North doesn't lose too many believers." Bunny ground his teeth, what was he supposed to do? The answers could be _right there_! "Oh, wait. Nevermind. I can hear it quite clearly. Too late, too late. Too late to find the cure. Unable to cure the sickness. Reindeer, it's the reindeer that are sick. And they aren't going anywhere." Pitch smirked, tapping his head. "I always know."

"Now, whether or not I help you, that…" Pitch stalked around him. "Is a whole other affair."

"We should've sent Jack…" Bunny muttered.

"Like that would make any difference. If one of the most believed Guardians were to fall, I wonder what would happen to the boy." Bunny growled.

"Look, you said it would be too easy yourself." Bunny stood straighter, snorting. "Yea, you can't take us out by yourself, so you gotta use some chance sickness." Pitch growled and Bunny thanked the gods Pitch had such an ego.

"Fine." The Boogeyman bit out. "But I'm not letting you have free run of my library. What are you looking for in particular?" Pitch was already walking along the path that was suspended in mid air, leading to a wall. Bunny took a moment to follow, hopping quickly to follow Pitch through the shadows to find himself in a hallway, leading up to large ebony doors. _That was the library_. "Anything on healing herbs or potions. Specially from around the time North became Santa, since that was when the reindeer were created."_ And when the Dark Ages ended._ Like he'd say that, though.

Waving a hand, the two doors opened and Bunny saw how large Pitch's collection actually was. "Oh crikey…" Bunny combed his ears back before Pitch cleared his throat. Pitch whistled and a Nightmare came from the maze of bookshelves, fully forming beside her master. After a whisper, Pitch turned to the Guardian.

"She'll show you where it is, just follow her." _And she'll tell me if you stray further than you need to._ With that, Pitch walked off, the doors banging shut behind him and Bunny couldn't help but wonder if he was stranded in here.

* * *

><p>AN: This is the tiny part of what I can salvage of my Christmas thing so whatev

I'm posting it anyways

Get ready for absolute silence from me, since school is starting. I hate everything lol

I tell them I can't read music

You let me quit Military Band

And you throw me into Choir

YEA GENIUS

NO WONDER I DON'T ATTEND

Also, I finally named the three bunnies! Jet Black, Ashen Grey and Gold Silver! (I just call em Silver, speaking of which, he's grooming my hand as I'm typing, tee hee)


	13. A little help (2)

Contrary to what Bunny assumed, Pitch didn't stay in his lair. Why would he do that when he could go to the North Pole and taunt them? He slid past the yetis, it was much too easy, really. He'd barely made two steps before the Sandman was at his throat, glaring at him. It would be cute to anyone else but one beating from Sanderson was quite enough for millennia, thank you very much. Pitch expected the Sandman to start asking questions in his normal ways, really it was too much work playing charades all the time, when Jack piped up from behind a bookshelf. "Sandy? What's wro- Pitch!?"

The youngest Guardian had his staff raised as well, but was still confused. Pitch feigned hurt, "Frost, is that really how you greet me? Can't I pay a little visit?" Pitch grunted when the Sandman went up to his face again. "Alright, alright, no need for that." He took a few steps away from the smaller spirit. "Did you really think I'd stay behind when I've heard about what's happened to North's little pets?" Sandy had a silhouette or Bunny and some books floating above his head and a question mark. "He's fine, he'll be lucky to find anything, honestly. I didn't know that thing could even read." Jack held in a snort, _yea, Pitch isn't looking for trouble. _

"Sandy, I think he's good for now." Pitch hissed at him and Jack grinned, he could just hear his insulted ego. _You make me sound like some pet. Yea, definitely what he's thinking. _"What are you doing here, Pitch."

"I can see you two have made absolutely no progress, shouldn't Toothiana and her infernal faeries be helping you right now?"

"She's working on her own collection." Jack shrugged, looking back to the book he'd been flipping through earlier. He looked up when he heard Pitch chuckle.

"You are never going to find anything-" Sandy was at his neck again, "like that." Pitch pushed him away which looked plain hilarious to Jack but he knew how powerful the Sandman truly was. Suddenly the book was snatched out of his hands.

"Hey!" The tendril of blacksand held the book open for the Boogeyman as he strode over and Sandy floated back to his pike of books. The mass of black and gold sand stood out, contrasting each other greatly. They mixed together as they each got their own books but never seemed to spread. Apparently the two had silently agreed not to touch each other's. Pitch was glancing between Jack's book and another he'd pullen out of nowhere. "Pitch, where'd you get that?"

"It's the only book I have that should help, from my own collection of course." Pitch was still glancing between the two, flipping pages occasionally.

"So you left Bunny in your library…"

"With the only helpful book here. I doubt he can read or understand any of the books he's been left with." Pitch smirked but stopped when they both heard the bell-like sound as Sandy 'spoke'. "Fine, fine." It took a while but Bunny eventually came back, though they could hear him as he walked from the entrance to North's workshop.

"I can't believe that stup- Pitch!" Pitch waved with a mocking grin before turning back to the two books, writing in another. Jack laughed at Bunny's face, he was downright pissed.

"You're not going to be much help gawking like that, Rabbit." Jack couldn't stop laughing, forcing himself back to the books. "Where would North be?" Jack was silent for a while, trying to figure out if he could tell Pitch before Sandy told him himself.

"That doesn't mean we're letting you anywhere close to him, Pitch." Bunny growled but Pitch was already heading out the library with one of the Nightmares fully formed. "Oi, where do you think you're going!?" Jack watched Bunny go after Pitch and looked over to Sandy.

"Should we go after them?" Sandy was just as confused as he was so they decided to tag along, surprisingly Bunny hadn't attacked Pitch yet, but he was about to with the way the Boogeyman was pretty much ordering him to do something.

"Call the Fairy, Rabbit." Pitch turned away, muttering. "Honestly are you all idiots?" He glanced at Jack and the other Guardians giving him a questioning look, "No, that question wasn't even needed…" He glared at them when none of them made the move to call the Tooth Fairy before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Honestly… I'm sure the Fairy would love to help North with _that_." He motioned at the yetis on the lower levels that were standing idly by. Normally they would already be ordered around by North to bring the presents they created to the sleigh.

"What do you mean?"

"Now what did you all do the last time one of you was unable to do her job properly?" Honestly Jack was feeling like Jamie in every class when he was caught talking with his friends, did Pitch _have_ to look at them like that?

The Guardians got the point and Bunny was off to bring Tooth over to help while Sandy went looking for North to see if they could help as Pitch suggested. Meanwhile Jack was still thinking over it, _yea he couldn't help but be a little suspicious of Pitch suddenly deciding to help, even referencing his… defeat, when they didn't get it._ Jack himself was surprised they hadn't thought of it, but then again it was North that had sprung the idea on them last time. He looked up when Pitch called him and watched as every yeti they passed were unnerved by the Boogeyman's presence, all the while he followed Pitch to where he figured out was the stables the reindeer were kept in. Before they got close to the doors however North exited with strangely lesser sound, though Jack guessed it was because he was so worried about Rudolph and the others. Pitch backed away a little, unsure of how North would act but the man hardly seemed to notice. Sandy nodded with a smile to Jack and the youngest Guardian flew up to North, starting to talk quickly on how he'd help him too. By then Tooth and Bunny had returned, although the former was a little confused until she heard what Jack was saying and nodded quickly, saying that her faeries would help as well.

Not long after, the other Guardians were shown to a sort of vault where all the toys were kept in and Tooth and her faeries were the first to spring into action, already getting more of them to fly over to help. They gathered in groups and worked together to carry off presents through the portals the yetis made using the snowglobes. The yetis followed as a sort of guard. Bunny was already boasting like last time of how quickly he'd be able to finish the deed.

"But Tooth collects thousands of teeth everyday Bunny, I just think you and North are too scared to admit you lost to a girl!" Jack teased when he came back with Bunny through his tunnels. North was back to his jolly self and was working with Tooth to make sure each group of faeries that were sent had a yeti with them. Sandy resumed his normal job, he worked especially hard on Christmas eve, giving kids wonderful dreams of what they'd possibly get the next morning. Noone was having a bad dream tonight. Jack stopped for a second, reminded of Pitch. He looked around the vault and narrowed his eyes, studying the room and the piles of presents that had lessened slightly after their work. "Guys…"

Jack had to yell one more time before the others noticed and looked at him. "The presents…"

"What's wrong, Jack?" Tooth flew a bit closer, worry etched on her face.

"They… they're disappearing faster than they should be…." Tooth's feathers stood up before she whirled around quickly to look at the room. Bunny was on alert as well, jumping higher to get a good look. Jack was right! The presents were disappearing faster than they should have with the faeries and yetis.

It wasn't even a full minute when Bunny roared. "PITCH!" He was already bounding off, nose twitching angrily as he tried to find the Boogeyman. Jack followed from above the maze of presents with Tooth and stopped when she pointed out a tendril of blacksand behind one of the piles of presents. Bunny had spotted it first however and was running to it, ready to attack. He leaped over the pile of presents and the two fliers heard him tackle something and hit the ground. The two flew over quickly to see Bunny backing up and waving blacksand away from his face with his paws, eyes clenched shut and coughing. As they got closer the blacksand sped away and they followed it and saw it form into a Nightmare that hid behind Pitch. Said Nightmare King was watching them with narrowed eyes.

"Pray tell, why were you attacking my Nightmare?" He sneered at Bunny as he waved the Nightmare off. He dropped out of sight and a boomerang whizzed through the air his neck had been at, appearing at another corner. "Really, Rabbit?" He had a brow raised and was staring at Bunny with a bored look. Bunny was growling and ground his teeth.

"Bunny, calm down!" Tooth flew up to him while Jack watched Pitch. _What was he doing?! _He looked around before seeing what the Nightmares were up to.

"Pitch! Make them stop! Now!" The Boogeyman glared at him and got a glare in return before sighing and muttering something. The Nightmares all halted, the bright coloured wrapping paper on the presents they held standing out against their black pelts. The Boogeyman gave him a face that screamed, _Happy?_ And Jack glared at him before looking at the Nightmares. "Wherever you brought those presents, put them back!"

"Yea, you aren't doing anything to Christmas, you hear me!?" Bunny yelled and Tooth was visibly fighting herself on whether or not to let him attack Pitch.

Pitch scoffed at them before taking a step back, already disappearing into the shadows. "Hey!" The three yelled and went in after him, stumbling when they found themselves in a house.

"What…" Tooth whirled around a few times, looking at the living room they appeared to be in. They looked up when they heard a soft tinkling noise. "Sandy!?" The small man waved but had a question mark above his head, _how'd you get here?_ "I… don't know…" Bunny walked slowly, making sure he didn't make too much noise when Jack noticed the Christmas tree.

"Guys, look." The others walked, or flew, over and saw it as well and took a couple of minutes to realize it was as it should have been, with a pile of presents underneath. Except none of them had gone to this house yet. "Did Pitch…" The four Guardians were too shocked by what it implied and the older ones didn't really want to believe it.

Tooth shook her head. "Let's go back, we need to keep going, North needs our help!" Sandy gave them the spare snowglobe North had handed him and they used it, stepping into the bright spinning portal back to the North Pole. Tooth's faeries immediately flew up to her and she and North resumed their work, though North's questioning look only went away when they promised they'd answer all questions later. If they could figure out what happened themselves. The sun was already rising in the last part of the world experiencing Christmas and the Guardians were finally finished, slumping in the chairs in the 'lounge' close to the library. North sat down expectantly and after a while Jack groaned. North was not going to stop giving them that face until he got answers.

"I'm not telling him." The winter spirit said firmly, crossing his arms childishly and sliding down further into the chair. This only made North raise a brow and look to the others. Sandy shrugged, _I don't know anything._ And went back to his eggnog, leaving Bunny and Tooth to explain how they'd found Pitch and how he'd supposedly led them to that house.

"So…" North stroked his beard and Jack rolled his eyes a little. "Pitch… he helped us?"

Bunny snorted at that, "Probably not, I say he's just trying to mess us up! He's out doing something right now!"

"But, he did not steal presents?" North looked over to Sandy who flashed some images again. _I checked the houses, everything is as it should be. _North nodded and looked at Tooth and Bunny, motioning with one hand at Sandy with a _See? _Look on his face. The two groaned.

"Guys, we forgot something." Jack started. "Again. Although I don't think North did." When the rest looked at him he motioned at the lower levels of the Russian palace. "Rudolph? The reindeer? We still need to find the cure." North was up and off again, probably to tend to the reindeer.

"But we haven't found anything, mate! None of us have any cure written in any of the books in any of our libraries!" Bunny answered, but he did feel guilty, he couldn't do anything to help, he didn't know of any possible herb that could help and he knew _**lots **_of plants and remedies. Tooth and Sandy were the same.

"Pitch does." The three looked up at him, their faces disbelieving.

"And he didn't tell us!?" Bunny shot up, and if Sandy hadn't stopped him, Jack was sure he'd be down a tunnel and heading to Pitch's lair within seconds.

"I don't think he will, not after _that._" Jack pointed out. "Also you attacked a Nightmare."

"Like those things could feel anything, they're just some stupid horses." Bunny scoffed and was childishly glaring at thin air as he sat back down.

"But he cares a lot about them, you know. And we thought Pitch couldn't be friendly but look at him."

"I wouldn't call him friendly."

"Noted. We'll just have to keep looking I guess." Jack got up slowly, stopping at the doorway and waiting for the others. After a few seconds the others got up and they headed to the library, determined.

* * *

><p>AN:

AD: What's this, you've returned?

Shut up, man. The physics and the chemistry and maths and advanced Maths be like... UGH *falls back and lands on pillow*

AD: Uh huh. I'll take over. Apologies *bows* for Rubix's recent disappearance, (honestly _you_ should be apologizing)

Shut up.

AD: Her education seems to be more important.

Yes it is

AD: Priorities, girl. Do it right.

Ugh. Also, Blue, I'm watching you! DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME BEHIND! RAWR

AD: You are hardly a cause for fear.

Sometimes I regret letting you live here.

AD: I don't. This is my domain.

Not what AK says.

ANYWAYS

I'm just going to finish this little thing up then my one crossover idea will be coming up!

Other than that, SERIOUSLY PEOPLE

I NEED **PROMPTS**

With that said.

Rubix and rabbits out!


	14. A little help (3)

It was pretty much hopeless! They'd been searching for two days through all the books they could get their hands on and nothing! Jack groaned, he was not made to read tens of thousands of books! _Why don't we just go ask Pitch again?_ He lifted his head out of the book long enough to see Bunny and sighed. _Oh yea, too dangerous._ Jack snorted and rolled his eyes, honestly he'd rather take Pitch on then take books on. He shuddered, if he had to read anymore he was _done! No more!_ Peeking at Bunny, the Pooka was fully engrossed in the book so he decided to slip out for some air. Even Wind was getting impatient, _when can we play? When can we play?_ If he only knew, Jack wanted to help, he really did, and he'd been trying but the reindeer weren't getting better and they'd had no hints at a cure! The Wind started tugging on his hoodie and it only took him a minute before he relented. His old friend always knew when he needed a break, best he listened to her. It'd be okay if he left for a while, as long as he didn't bump into Ana, the spirit of Spring. She was a sweet girl and she kind of cleaned up his mess, she would nag at him at times for certain things, like when he left too much snow at certain places so it'd take longer for the plants underneath to grow.

Jack was heading straight to Burgess, deciding to hang out with Jamie a last time before he was 'banished' to the North Pole for Spring. He'd only finished playing around and helping Jamie distract Sophie, _the girl just loved Bunny, why she liked that grumpy Kangaroo was beyond him,_ when the three heard the siblings' mother calling them for dinner. Jamie would have to go to sleep soon so Jack bid them goodbye. When he left the Bennet's house, however, he couldn't believe the Northern Lights he saw. _Maybe they found a cure? _Jack sped off quickly, he wanted to help with as much as he could!

"-and he ran off! But I got **this** out of his hands before he got away!" Bunny was reporting to the others when Jack finally arrived, his nose twitching quickly as he held up a worn black book, waiting for the other Guardians' reaction.

"So there _is _a cure?" Tooth flitted up hopefully and Bunny nodded and everyone broke out in smiles.

"What'd I miss?" Jack was on the railing, leaning on his staff, his head tilted. Bunny scoffed before bragging.

"Pitch came back and I caught him trying to steal this, he must've hidden it somewhere we couldn't find it so we couldn't read it. I grabbed it before he disappeared again and he didn't come back. Must've run home scared." Jack didn't say anything but he was questioning if Bunny was really looking at him as if to see if he was saddened by what Pitch did. _No, Bunny hated Pitch but he still cares about me, he's my friend, he wouldn't want to see me like that, right? Even if it was to prove a point._ Jack shrugged it off and watched North take the book from Bunny, looking at the small yet detailed sketches of a strange flower, notes scribbled beside them. Jack, Tooth and Sandy floated up behind him to peek over his shoulder and he saw that there were many warnings, repeated many times over, of mistaking another herb for the cure. The only difference between the two was that one had thorns from the roots while the other only had thorns near the leaves and flowers itself. It looked a bit like a rose but the petals were more spread out and it was described as a sickly green which was ironic to say the least. The flower itself was a pale purple colour, as the text said. After that there seemed to be instructions on how to use the plant to create the actual cure. It was found in the more isolated places of the globe, mostly in the tropical areas. That made it hard for Jack to find it then… What luck.

North pretty much yelled for everyone to get to the sleigh and Jack flew along, taunting Bunny on his reluctance to follow. Of course Bunny had to prove him wrong and promptly regretted it when North refused to _just __**slow down!**_ Jack stayed at the furthest edges of the tropical areas so he could fly to a cooler place if needed.

After about half the day was gone, he was finished with half of the areas he had to check, with no luck. As he went on he couldn't help but feel his fears heighten. _What if the plant was gone? Extinct? None of them had heard of it before, and the others were WAY older than him!_ Wait what was that?

He thought he saw something glint and reflect light. But he was so far away from civilisation! There couldn't be any sort of metal here! He flew closer but couldn't find anything metal. He narrowed his eyes at the place before flying backwards slowly. Maybe he just imagined it. He was about to continue off when the closeby tree positively _**shook**_. He stopped, _what the heck was happening!?_ He flew down again, searching carefully. Was it some kind of machine that was malfunctioning or something? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever- was that!? Jack's target, which had originally been the weird plant, had changed to 'Shiny Metal thingy' and he barely noticed the vine wrapping around the tree had the flower he needed! He looked at it carefully, trying to remember all the warnings and notes so he didn't get the wrong one and once he semi-confirmed it, quickly used the snowglobe with him. He zipped in and out, quick enough for a yeti that was on standby to see and alert the other Guardians. It took a while and Jack was pacing about, ready to protect the flower at all costs when the others finally appeared.

"Took you long enough! Bunny, check if it's the right one!" Bunny waved him away with an annoyed face, bringing the book up to compare the notes and sketches with the flower before turning and nodding. Jack waited when Bunny didn't take the flower and was confused until he saw Bunny found another flower before cutting off the original. Jack guessed he was making sure the plant would continue to grow.

Bunny kept it carefully with a container he brought and North opened up a portal back to the North Pole while Bunny rushed in, already shooting off questions and complaints about how the cold might affect the plant. The older Guardians went off to make the cure, leaving Jack in the Globe Room. He perched on it, holding his staff loosely and sighed. It was better for him not to get too close to the plant, he really _could_ harm it.

"North will have to be patient. I do hope he knows _that much_" Jack started and jerked to see Pitch sitting a little higher on the Globe, leaning against the gold that held it in place as it spun.

"P-Pitch!?" Jack was so confused on whether to attack or not, Pitch was constantly contradicting everything he thought the way he acted! Pitch was still staring out at the workshop so Jack calmed a little. Why did Pitch do this? _I mean, he helped with the presents. Then he up and leaves, I mean I don't blame him but… And then he comes and tries to steal the book and stop us from finding the cure! Why, why why?!_ Jack was sick of thinking too much, he was starting to get a headache… "Why are you here, Pitch?" Jack grumbled, annoyed. He expected some sort of snarky reply but Pitch just turned to look at him oddly, one leg drawn up so his elbow was on his knee. The Boogeyman shrugged before saying quietly.

"Could I have my book back, Frost." Jack was seriously confused, what in the world happened to Pitch!? And why would he think he'd give him that book?! It was North's! He shook his head slowly.

"No…" He had the odd urge to apologize, but why? Pitch wasn't supposed to be here, and he sure as hell didn't deserve that book! The Boogeyman sighed, his eyes a little dull before they brightened a little, his pupil getting smaller by just a bit, Jack thought he might have imagined it, and he got up.

"Then I'll get it myself." Pitch said walking behind the pillar of gold, gone by the time Jack went around it. Barely a second later he could hear things crashing to the ground and he gasped, flying quickly to where the others were and seeing Bunny jumping off tables and tipping them as he chased Pitch. The silhouette of the Boogeyman went straight into a dark corner of the room and disappeared entirely, leaving a fuming Bunny.

"What happened?" Jack asked Tooth, already starting to feel guilty. He could have stopped Pitch earlier! He could have reacted faster and catch him earlier!

"Pitch took the book away…" Tooth was still somewhat shocked and Jack cringed at the thought of her when she started panic, but he had to ask.

Jack looked to North worriedly, "And the cure?" North took a moment to answer, saying that the cure was fine, he had sent Phil to give it to the reindeer a while ago. Jack sighed in relief. "So… what do we do now?"

"Track Pitch down and make sure he stays down in his stupid lair!" Bunny was seething and as usual someone had to calm him down, leading him away as he swore.

Once they settled that nothing else was lost everyone retired to bed, all tired and wanting to discuss things the next day. Of course Jack couldn't sleep and slipped out, saying goodbye to the yetis on guard. He was going to get some answers. No matter what.

Jack had taken a chance and went to Burgess, hopefully Pitch didn't move the entrance _again_. "Pitch?" He called out once he was in the tunnel system. No Nightmares came out to greet, or attack, him and Jack didn't know if that was good or bad. "Pitch?" He called again and this time he heard Pitch behind him and he whirled around to see him. Pitch seemed… tired, strangely.

"What is it, Jack?" Pitch asked, attempting to look bored but he was slipping. _Something's wrong, _Pitch normally called him Frost, what with his attitude, and he'd never let someone see him looking like this. "If you're going to stand there the entire night you might as well take a picture." Jack snapped out of it and watched Pitch carefully before saying carefully.

"Actually… could I hang out here tonight?" Jack followed Pitch after he nodded and recognized that they were heading to the library, making him tense. Did Pitch know what he came for? Was he going to taunt him or something? But he didn't he just sat in his normal place and Jack was surprised to find another armchair for him. He settled in slowly, cautious. Wait… was that? That was the book Pitch had brought with him when he'd been with him and Sandy in North's library, and on the table… was the book he'd been writing in, the book he led Bunny to. The book he took back! Jack sighed in his head, Pitch was actually… good. He'd been helping them, in his weird way. But why didn't he stay behind to defend himself? Jack groaned, he was thinking to hard, trying to understand the Boogeyman was impossible, seriously. He might as well ask him outright.

"Spit it out, Jack. I can practically hear you thinking from here." Pitch brought him back from his musing and he thought a moment.

"Why… Why'd you help us?" Jack tilted his head, curious when Pitch leaned back, looking like he was already getting a headache.

The Boogeyman waved his hand like he was dismissing someone, "Next question." _Yup, Pitch definitely had a headache._

"Well that's no fair." Jack couldn't help it, he was starting to joke with Pitch. He stuck his tongue out childishly.

"Either you find another question or I'm knocking you out." Pitch's tone was lighter as he answered, threatening him with a ball of blacksand like Sandy had done before.

"Fine fine, gods now I feel like I'm on a timer."

"Who said you weren't? Tick tock tick tock." Pitch mocked back, _still _doing the ticking sound.

"I hate you."

"Thank you." Pitch made the blacksand disappear before speaking. "Also as for why I helped you," Jack leaned in as Pitch continued muttering, "Although I could have left you all to rot away…" The Winter sprite rolled his eyes. "I helped you, so shall we leave it at that?"

"That's no answer!"

"That's all you're going to get, Jack. Now what are you planning to do?"

"I don't know…" Jack shrugged, "Could I just… explore a little? Has anything changed?"

Pitch sighed before relenting, "Some new corridors, you've been past that wall enough times to notice the new corridors, now shoo." The Boogeyman led him out the library, shooing at him before disappearing into the shadows and leaving a Nightmare behind to watch him.

"So…" The Nightmare snorted, looking annoyed and he stared at it for a while before exclaiming, "Bitey!?" It growled low at the name. "You are him! I mean her!" The nightmare continued to glare at him and he inched towards it, lifting his hand a little to try to pet it. It lifted its snout higher and away from him and he grunted like a little kid not allowed to have his toy. He sighed a little and started flying around, spotting the new corridor Pitch had talked about, after he checked all the new random staircases and pathways. "We should get you another name, Bitey won't cut it." He didn't know if the Nightmare agreed with him or was humouring him. "Let me think.. Eh…" It gave him a look and growl that said, _Don't you dare call me_. Of course Jack couldn't tell what name she didn't want so he shrugged. "Snapp- Alright, it's off the list! Okay, okay. No Snappy." Jack pulled his hand away from its jaws at the last second, thinking. "Y'know… they always call me Frostbite…" The Nightmare didn't give any response so he continued carefully, "Yea.. could I call you that?" The Nightmare stopped when he did and tilted its head a little, narrowing its eyes criticizing. Jack gave it his best puppy eyes before it grunted a little, leaning its head down. Jack took a second before he tried to pet it and surprisingly, succeeded. With that the Nightmare nuzzled him and was a bit more friendly. "I have no idea what just happened but at least you aren't trying to kill me now Frostbite." He got a neigh in response and the two explored the new rooms, Frostbite tugging Jack out of a room with broken mirrors before he landed on the floor, almost scolding him as it motioned at the glass on the floor.

Of course, after a while Jack had to leave, he had his own stuff to do and after a short nap he was convinced it'd be morning by then. He left with a goodbye to Frostbite and went off to enjoy the last of winter. Anastasia was going to be coming around soon with spring and he really hated fighting with others when he was just trying to have some fun. What with all the snowball fights, Jack barely saw time fly past and was blindsided when Jamie and his friends' parents called them back home. This would normally have left Jack bored and to fly off somewhere else, that is until he saw the Northern Lights. It was starting to be too common of a sighting if you asked him. _What could be happening now?_

Of course Bunny was already asking North that by the time he got there and Jack sat by with Sandy as the two bickered a bit while Tooth was still shooting off orders left and right.

"Okay, enough! Bunny, we talk about Pitch, today." North ended the argument before turning to the others as well.

"Wait, North, are the reindeer okay?" Tooth asked worriedly, the few faeries with her hovering nearby. All of them seemed to droop a little when he shook his head.

"No, not so much. We have not seen improvement yet."

"You'll have to be patient." The other Guardians were surprised when Jack said it and turned to him with questioning looks. _Oops. _Jack though before shrugging, _might as well tell them._ Fiddling with his staff he continued. "Pitch said so." He shrunk a little, expecting the sudden outburst of questions and waiting for them to slow down. _Oh how was he suppose to explain this?_ "That book we found was Pitch's guys. Really. Sandy you remember right? He left it here for us to find! I don't know why he didn't just give it to us but he did. And I swear he was the one that led me to it!"

"But Jack, why would he do that?" Jack winced in his head. Pitch was good now. He wouldn't sit by and watch when kids stopped believing. He'd help Jack, he'd help them! But would he? No, Jack didn't know why he trusted the older spirit so much, but he _did_.

"I-I don't know-"

"He tried to keep me in his library when I tried to look for him! He even said something about not helping us, of letting kids stop believing in us. I mean, wouldn't that be too easy for him!?" Bunny interrupted, fur raised in anger.

"But he told us to get Tooth!"

"Probably because he didn't want it to look like some sickness caused us to fail! He probably wanted it to look like he snuck in and got rid of us!"

"But the presents-"

"Could have been a trick! You gotta stop being so naïve, mate. Pitch isn't a good guy. He's just been playing us this whole time! I bet you he _made_ them sick!" Jack shook his head. He wasn't naïve! Pitch wouldn't do it! Pitch had been friendly with him so far, Jack never knew why he'd accepted their help so easily but now he wished he had asked. It made him sick to think both possibilities were too easy to be true!

"I went to his lair just now and he didn't attack me! He let me stay too, even after you guys thought he stole the book!" Jack didn't like this, he'd never dealt with people, never dealt with these sort of problems, he didn't know how, he just didn't want to deal with it all!

"Sweet Tooth, calm down…" Tooth had gotten closer at one point and was patting his back, which soothed him a little as he sighed. The other Guardians finally heard the sounds as Sandy was showing off the images, _the book was Pitch's! Jack's right!_

Finally, the others relented a little and Jack was a little insulted. _Why'd they believe Sandy so easily but not me? _He sniffed but he already knew the answer. The others knew each other longer, of course they'd trust him more.

Tooth sat him down while North argued with Bunny a while longer. With Sandy's help they seemed to accept that Jack was right about Pitch, even if it was strange how he went about helping them but Jack supposed it was how Pitch did things. _If only he didn't make it so hard for me._ Jack scoffed, _of course he would._

After a while everyone headed home, North the last to disappear into his workshop. They had decided to wait as Pitch had suggested, though no one knew what to do with the Boogeyman now. Jack assumed everyone would go back to ignoring him like they used to…

Jack hadn't planned it, but he ended up drifting off on the couch.

Only to wake up with some elves prodding at him before North asked him to get Pitch.

"Wha-wha?" His hair was messed up, more so than usual, after his sleep and he was still groggy. "What do you mean?"

"Help get Pitch, Jack. If you don't mind." He said that, but Jack knew he'd have nothing else to do anyways and sighed.

"But why?" Jack was honestly curious, what was North up to? "Are the others coming too? I thought you said he was okay now."

"No, Jack. Others won't know."

"So why are we calling him over? He won't come without some sort of explanation y'know. He might think we're trying to ambush him or something."

"Lie to him?"

"What!?" Jack was startled. North was asking him to lie to Pitch!? Was he giving him puppy eyes!? Jack started muttering after a while and relented.

"Fine. Fine. I'll get him here…" _Eyes full of wonder, pfft. Those things had the potential to make __**Pitch **__succumb to a request. How could he be able to make __**that**__ good a puppy-eye expression!? _"But I'm not happy about it…" North waved him away and offered a snowglobe to Burgess which Jack used.

"Piiitch!? Yo, Pitch?" The teen called, of course there wasn't an answer. He was surprised when he heard neighing and saw Frostbite again. Or at least he assumed it was her. It seemed she had become his official escort now, the way she started pushing him along. "I can walk you know." The grunt he got spelled out, _Then walk faster_, out pretty clearly. Strangely he wasn't led to the library, rather he got pushed to a strange black coloured metal door, which opened of its own accord. "Pitch? You okay?"

The Boogeyman seemed to be having a fairly bad headache, and Jack didn't think it was because of him. "What is it Jack." He mumbled, putting down his tea. Jack seriously needed to find out where he kept getting that stuff.

"Do you mind coming back to North's place? The others aren't there, just North."

"I don't need blinding colours and lights in my face right now Jack." Pitch grumbled back.

"Yea… But North was the one that wanted you to go…" He shut up when Pitch glared at him from under the hand that had been pressed against his forehead before sighing and shaking his head, muttering.

"If I was in my right mind right now I wouldn't be doing this."

"What could you possibly be thinking about that made you more out of your mind than usual?" Jack said sarcastically as Pitch went through a shadowgate, following close. Jack thought he heard a snarled, _None of your business,_ but he wasn't sure. He shrugged it off when they reached the Russian Palace and he heard Pitch hiss before his silhouette appeared on the nearest wall. "Stop acting like a vampire, Pitch."

"I do _not _want to deal with _this_, Jack. It'd be best if you tell me why I'm here already." Pitch snarled and motioned at the closest light source.

"Ah, Pitch! Good to see you!" Jack heard Pitch groan at the other Guardian's booming voice before his silhouette stood a little straighter.

"Why have you called me here, North. This had better be important."

"Yes,yes. Of course!" The lights dimmed a little which surprised both Jack and Pitch, who'd slipped back into the normal realm. Pitch fixed a confused look at North before following when the man motioned for his workshop. North asked Jack to stay behind which confused him all the more. _What the heck was North up to? _He watched curiously when a yeti, Phil he thought, brought something in his hands inside as well. _What?_

Jack winced when he heard the familiar locking sounds of the door, why did North always do that? He flew close to the door gingerly, ready to dart away at any moment before trying to listen in. _Man, this was one thick door, probably soundproofed to keep out all the noise._ Jack glared at the door before moving back a bit, looks like he was getting no information… unless…. Within minutes he was out the window and floating below the window at North's workshop, listening in.

"-you for helping us."

"Oh, really?"

"I do not know why you insist on keeping it secret, but I do not mind. But I'd like to give you something."

"I don't have time for one of your silly inventions, North. I'm not like Jack or any of the othe-" Pitch had snarled and Jack thought he heard him take a step back before he shut up. _What the heck was going on? "What is that?"_

"Is real thing, ya. Not toy." North joked back before he must've passed something to him. "Something I found long time ago, I don't use so, I can give you." North took a few steps back before laughing. "You are smart, Pitch. You know what it is?" There was silence for a moment before North chuckled. "No need to thank me. There is nothing else, Pitch. You can go if you want to." North trailed off before sitting down heavily in his chair. "Unless you want to try here?"

Pitch seemed to have snapped out of it before saying quickly, "No, I think I'll be going. Maybe another day." He said the last part a tad bit softer and even softer, said, ´Thank you, North." Jack was _beyond_ curious now. What just happened!? Well, he couldn't ask North, so he could only trail Pitch to find out what had happened.

Jack found his way back into the Globe room quick enough to be there before Pitch strode back in, holding a package wrapped in shiny black wrapping paper, tied up with a golden ribbon. Strangely, Pitch was holding it carefully, like some sort of treasure, _what the heck did North give him? _Before he could follow him though, North stopped him and he could only watch Pitch disappear into the shadows.

If he was Sandy he'd have a huge question mark above his head as he looked at North. "What was that for?" Before North could answer he remembered the more important question. "What did you give him? It's not like some ancient treasure or weapon or something, right?"

"No, no." North laughed, patting his shoulder. "But if you want to see present, you go Burgess. Give him time to open in private, first." North winked before heading back inside, leaving an overly curious Jack that already had a target location set before he even jumped out the window for the Wind to carry him.

* * *

><p>AN: Let's see here, how late am I for this again?

Yea like, TWO WEEKS

Oh gods above, I am SO SORRY. Wait no, most of you are sick of hearing that from other writers, eh? Alright, but you know I'm rolling around on the floor dieing cos I didn't get this up here. Anyways, I'm thinking I could post the next part of this lil arc, or leave it here. So if you wanna find out what Pitch got...

To be honest it was the idea of the gift that made me write this lil arc thing... *shrug* I think it ran away from me after the Chirstmas Crash (that's what I'm calling it) so yea.

Hmm, is this..? Oh look, I have seriously run out of ideas o.0

To 13BlueBananas: Yea the "INTO DA LAKE" thing is GOING to happen, I need to figure out how he got them so pissed off first. Could be payback for the Accent thing.

*BlastphemousHD's voice* "I'm practically _begging_ here", for prompts TT_TT

Gods I am still shipping Blackice so hard I cannot even. But no, I WILL write a big warning up top if there is ever any sort of shipping or OCs since I know people get annoyed by certain things.

Also I'm thinking of writing a sort of side-fic that is a copy and paste of this, HOWEVER, I do the whole CinemaSins set-up, y'know?

Example being

_-"We can't let Jack go, he'll say more than he should, you know that." Sandy nodded and flashed some images, the two trust each other more than they'd admit, Jack would say too much. Bunny groaned, his ears lowering._

_-"Come now, Rabbit. Let's make a deal, you tell me why you need my books, and I might help to make sure North doesn't lose too many believers." Bunny ground his teeth, what was he supposed to do? The answers could be right there! "Oh, wait. Nevermind. I can hear it quite clearly. Too late, too late. Too late to find the cure. Unable to cure the sickness. Reindeer, it's the reindeer that are sick. And they aren't going anywhere." Pitch smirked, tapping his head. "I always know."_

**_[You've fought with him before, longer than Jack's been alive! You should know his abilities by now, or at the very least try to ignore your fear!]_**

-"So you left Bunny in your library…"

-"With the only helpful book here. I doubt he can read or understand any of the books he's been left with."

_**[*sarcasm* Haha Pitch is a d*ck to Bunny.]**_

Because CinemaSins is so OP :P

Anyways, tell me what you thought, of the chapter (if you haven't already forgotten it) and the ideas :D

With that

Rubix and rabbits, signing out!


	15. A little help (4)

Jack had sped towards the entrance to Pitch's lair in Burgess although he slowed to listen out. Sadly he couldn't hear anything, and he admitted it was stupid anyways. The lair was so far away and underground to make sure no sounds escaped. He sighed before jumping in, honestly there shouldn't be so many turns. And the random stalagmites and stalactites made it hard to fly through the tunnels. However he'd been here enough time he'd memorised the first few tunnels so he could dodge everything properly. He supposed if he was ever in trouble the first few parts could slow an enemy down. _WAIT!_

The Guardian heard something and restrained himself from fistpumping. _Oooh, what could it be, what could it be!?_ He listened hard, there was a long sound but just as he focused on the sound there was a screech that made him grind his teeth. _OW! _He shook his head, he could feel his _bones_ all weird. He was way too susceptible to bad . He was scared to do it but eventually he listened again, he flinched when he heard something but thankfully it was actual music this time. _Music! Wait, he knew what made that sound… He had to make sure though! _As he went along he practically confirmed it. A violin. Jack didn't know what to think. There was so much to ask. Why would Pitch even like this? Scratch that, that would so be the drama king. So did North give him some sort of music player he made or something? It sounded real and live, so maybe it had its own touch of magic? But what if he'd gotten an _actual _violin!? _When the heck did he ever learn to use a violin!? And why would he even learn!? _Jack was _very_ curious now on what he was playing, he'd pretty much accepted it was probably an actual violin. He'd expected some weird song, he never understood people that listened to old music, some were just plain boring. _Yup, that sounded like the type. _Strangely, halfway through one of those lame classical songs, Pitch had stopped. Jack had sat down in one of the tunnels by then, he didn't want to barge in now but got up. _Did Pitch know he was here? Probably. Was he going to attack him? Yup. _Nothing happened and Jack hesitated to settle back down, Pitch could be waiting for him to do just that before sending something at him. After a tense moment of nothing happening, Jack slowly got back down, sitting with his legs crossed and leaning on the wall.

There was another song now, but it was weird. Familiar. Jack sat by, the music still somewhat slow, thinking hard. Someone had played this before, and recently. The music had stopped for a moment but there was a gut feeling that it was an intentional pause. That's it! It was a recent song, kind of popular too! He'd heard teenagers blasting the music as he flew past their homes, heck even Jamie had gotten it on his computer to play out loud at times! Jack sat by, listening happily, it was faster now, but with the original in his head he could add in the more techno sounds in his head and it sounded good. He tapped his foot and moved a little to the beat, just listening to the imaginary beat and the actual violin music. This was so cool! Sure that sounded old and lame but it really was cool! He winced a little, that part was a little high but Pitch had made it work. As he listened he started thinking, where and how did Pitch find the song? Probably like he did, just happening across the teens that stayed up late, really he had no idea what they did so late into the night. _Oh, the fast part was gone, now it was slow as the start. Aw, it was going to end!_ Jack swore in his head, he'd never heard a version like this and while he was thinking he'd missed a part of it! He sighed, it was gone now, and he could only hear it in his memories. _Okay, so, how'd he find the exact notes and everything?_

Jack couldn't figure it out, maybe Pitch had gotten some of the music sheet from the more forgetful humans? But would Pitch intentionally seek that stuff out? After all he couldn't have known about his latest gift he'd received! But finding the music sheets by luck was _way _too coincidental. So maybe he _did _look for the music… Jack could hardly believe it though, _what else could Pitch be like? If this weird thing was happening right under his nose, what else? _Jack snorted, some thoughts were best left in the void. He heard a soft click and slumped, was Pitch keeping it away already? He sat on alert again when he heard Pitch swore and he thought he heard the case being opened again and a tense silence before there was music again, a little faster. _How much did that camera cost again? Heck he should have asked for one from North!_

Surprisingly, Jack got away with listening to three more songs. One he heard on TV, some show's music, maybe a soundtrack, though it wasn't quite _right. _It sounded cool but Jack couldn't tell which of the two shows he'd pointed out it came from. Another he hadn't heard before though and the last was just a repeat of the first song. He'd tested his luck at one point and peeked in, it seemed there were a couple of Nightmares only but with his back turned, Jack couldn't see Pitch's face but he'd confirmed the violin. Strange though, Jack swore he'd overhead some of the more musically inclined people say the viola was more suitable for tall people. Either that or his memory was just messing with him.

Jack watched Pitch keeping it away, sending the Nightmares to put it somewhere. The way they held it he guessed damaging it was akin to a deathwish. The teen decided to wait a while before making his presence known. "Hey Pitch… Why'dya leave North's so soon? And what was that package?" Pitch regarded him for a moment before shrugging.

"None of your business, Frost." Looks like Pitch was back to normal. Jack sighed before sitting on his staff.

"Awwww, you're not going to tell me?" Jack leaned forward, pouting and the older continued to ignore him. He grunted and leaned back before something bumped him from behind and he yelped. "Wha- Frostbite!" He squealed a little before hugging the Nightmare's neck. He never really left a marking he just knew it was her. Which reminded him…

"Jack, get away from my Nightmare." Pitch said, a little puzzled when the Nightmare seemed content with the hug. _What on Earth? _Getting no response he ordered quickly, "Tìhona, za'u fìtseng!" The order rang sharply but the Nightmare, _what did Frost call her? Frostbite? Ridiculous, _didn't respond, just looked at him from where she stood. When he glared at her again she whined before trotting over and behind him, head lowered. "Pray tell, Jack. What did you do to my Nightmare."

Jack snapped out of making something, Pitch didn't know what, out of ice and looked up, complaining. "Hey that needed concentration!" He glowered at Pitch before smirking and waving his hands dramatically. "Oh you know, I hypnotised her, soon all of them will be under my control."

"I think I really did dodge a bullet when you didn't join my side, you are terrible at being a bad guy." Pitch rolled his eyes and replied with a fake sigh of relief. He ignored the indignant 'Hey!' he got in return before muttering and looking at Frostbite. "Honestly, I swear it was her that even suggested it."

"What?" Jack was curious, what was that supposed to mean?

Pitch sighed before telling him. "It wasn't entirely my idea to help North, Frost." He glared at the gathered Nightmares in the room, some scuffling the floor sheepishly. "In fact, they wanted to try the sleigh." Pitch instantly regretted telling the young Guardian that once Jack gaped at him and the Nightmares.

"Really!?"

"I regret letting them race that day." Pitch groaned and Frostbite was free to approach Jack again. "What did you call her again?"

"Frostbite! Cos, y'know, she always like to 'bite' Frost!" Jack pointed at himself with both hands, a huge grin on his face before he hugged Frostbite who neighed happily. Pitch and the other Nightmares stared at the two blankly before the Boogeyman just left, pulling the closest Nightmare with him.

"That is one Nightmare I regret granting sentience." Jack heard him mutter and he swore the closest Nightmare neighed in agreement. "It seems I'll leave you two to watch each other, then." Pitch commented before him and the squad of Nightmares with him left, Frostbite standing at attention until they left.

"So… what are we going to do now?" Jack asked with a smile, knowing just what. Chaos of course. "Ah, wait! Now that Pitch isn't here, no one can mess me up!" Jack floated for a moment and Frostbite watched curiously as he molded something out of ice, similar to what he was working on earlier. It was about the size of Jack's chest and she watched him hollow it out and mold it, tapping parts to solidify them before she snorted in surprise at the gift. It was a piece of armour, the headpieace for a horse. "Wanna try it?" He held it up like he was giving her a tiara before she stood straight in alert, eyes wide with panic. "What's wrong gir-" He yelped and dropped the armour, hearing it shatter. Frostbite had grabbed his hoodie before running, dragging him through the halls so fast he barely hung onto his staff. He was jerked left and right and even with the Wind he was never _this _dizzy. "Frostbite?" She'd rushed into a room, he never saw this one before, the door slamming shut behind her. "Frostbite, what's wrong?" He whispered softly, Frostbite was definitely _scared_. Nightmares did not get _scared_.

"THIEF!" Jack froze at the screech. "THIEF THIEF THIEF!" A woman's voice screeched before another male joined. "COME OUT, THIEF!" Jack trembled a little, Frostbite curling around him worriedly. It was purely instinctual, he'd had spirits come screaming at him before and there had never been a good result. He hugged Frostbite's neck tightly, climbing on. She leaned her neck in a way that said, _I'll run with you._ If anything happened to his staff, Frostbite would save him. He could tell. "We know you're here!" Jack gripped her mane a little tighter when the door creaked open. Frostbite looked back, telling him to be ready before she slid out silently and they were off. Jack noticed they were running away from the main chamber and he watched as the identical hallways and dark corridors passed by. He felt Frostbite lean down a little bit more, speeding up. _Something was happening. _He saw a column of light up ahead and guessed they were going to pass by the main chamber and she didn't want anyone seeing them. He leaned down as well, watching the light as it got closer before they passed it. A scream caught in his throat. _There was a man standing right there. And he wasn't supposed to be there. _Frostbite saw him as well and screeched, completely disintegrating into a cloud of blacksand and whisking him away. In his shock, Jack idly wondered if this was how it felt when the Nightmares had dragged Pitch away. "Ah ah ah~ Not so fast little horse!"

Hoodie. _His hoodie. It was stuck! _Jack choked when something pulled him back by the collar, tearing him away from Frostbite. "Fros-" He choked again when he was jerked backwards and held to the strange man's eye level. Jack was a young spirit, but he;d survived 300 years for a reason. He growled and took aim, shooting the man in the gut with a spike of ice, making him let go. Frostbite had returned to get him and almost reached the young Guardian before another hand wrenched his staff out of his hands. "No!"

Jack could see them now, in the slightly brighter main chamber. A man and woman, dressed in strange old garments. They looked like something out of an old fantasy movie. "My, look at this, Uba." The woman held up the staff and showed it off to the man, Uba. She poked at the frost pattern in the middle and Jack winced at the memory of it breaking. _Gods would they figure that out?_

Jack watched the frost on the man's clothes melt at an unnatural speed before the man growled at him and eyed the staff. "You certainly aren't one of us. A spirit even." He stalked behind the woman and continued analyzing the staff. "Very nice, Uhda." Jack resisted sighing in relief when they stopped paying attention to his staff. "Now, young spirit, I advice you not to run, your Nightmare won't be able to save you fast enough. In fact, if you'd be so kind, we hope you'd ask her to call your guardian here. Now."

"What?" Jack couldn't help but ask before forming a better question. "Wait, no! What do you want with Pitch!?" Frostbite neighed confidently behind him, snorting angrily and scratching at the floor with her sharp hoof.

"What he stole from us, child." Uhda spat and Jack cringed a little as her fist tightened on the staff.

"Stole what?" The pair jumped and turned to see Pitch sitting lazily on a nearby ledge. The Boogeyman waved a finger scoldingly before smirking. "Mistake." He sang with a laugh and Jack was blocked and dragged away, _again_, by Frostbite. Through the swirling mass of blacksand he saw another wave sweep the two towards the wall Pitch was perched on top. They were slammed into it full force before Pitch appeared before them and Jack was kept at the side with way too many Nightmares. Said over-protective Nightmares started leading him away, Frostbite leading the way. That didn't mean Jack didn't try to listen to what was happening past the wall of blacksand streaming past and hiding him away.

"-of you to enter my domain, you two are much dimmer than I assumed." Pitch hissed at the two and a grunt was heard before the sound similar to that of blades being drawn was heard. " Give me one reason why I shouldn't impale you right now." The Boogeyman growled and Jack thought he heard Uba snapping back at him before the loud ringing of something hard hitting and cracking the walls made him cringe. Jack didn't know if the lack of sounds of the two being torn apart was good or not but by then he was out of the main chamber.

Jack could tell they were heading to the library but was surprised that the Nightmares pretty much ditched him once they got there. He didn't know if he should have expected them to host the strictest watch on him. Only Frosbite seemed to pay him mind. "Hey girl…" He pet her, she seemed sorry about the lost piece of armour. "It's okay… but… what's happening? What did Pitch steal?" Frostbite shrugged and a nearby Nightmare seemed to snort angrily and Jack guessed it was a sort of _None of your business _gesture. "Okay…." Jack watched the other Nightmares warily before he thought of something. Snapping his fingers he asked Frostbite quietly. "Hey Bite, where'd they bring Pitch's new gift?" Frostbite seemed alarmed and glanced around before shaking her head, only getting puppy eyes in return. "Please…."

_What was up with this kid?_ Frostbite stared at the gigantic blue eyes staring at him before glancing around and inching past the other Nightmares, knowing Jack was following her. She snorted when they reached a smaller door and pushed it open slowly, wincing at the creak. Jack could practically see the, _We aren't supposed to be here, _vibe she gave off, like a teenage girl showing something off but knowing she'd get in trouble. Seeing the violin case he gasped and circled it slowly, careful not to lower the temperature too much, he remembered that it could affect the instrument, even if it was in the case. "Cool… Thanks Frostbite!" Jack wished he could open the case and stuffed his hands under his arms, as if warming them but of course it didn't work. "Hey, do you think you could open it? I just want a peek…" Frostbite shook her head, _no way no way! _"Aw come on, we're in enough trouble anyways!" Jack grinned but dropped it when the Nightmare shook her head, starting to push him out the room. "Aw come on, Frostbite… Pleas-"

"Frost, where are you!?" The Guardian squeaked and shot up, away from the door, the Nightmare following him to the middle of the library. He waved meekly from behind a bookshelf to an unamused Boogeyman.

"Hey Pitch." Jack floated up, holding his staff behind him. "Are you gonna tell me what just happened?"

"Are you going to tell me how you convinced my Nightmare to bring you to see my things?" Jack winced and could feel Frostbite do the same.

"Eh…" Pitch glared at him and behind him, most likely at Frostbite, before rolling his eyes. "You are staying here tonight, those two might try something stupid and I do _not _need you being poisoned or shot out of the sky."

"Who were those two? And you know I'm not gonna stop bugging you till you tell me!" Jack said confidently and Pitch relented, the teen thanking the gods silently that Pitch wasn't in one of his worse moods, despite his previous attitude to the pair.

" Witches, in a way. They lost one of their precious herbs and came running to me." Jack gawked at him a little bit and stuttered.

"W-wait wait wait… as in the plant we used for the reindeer!? For the cure!?"

"What cure?"

"Pitch… come on! You led me to the plant didn't you! Heck you even showed us what we needed!" The younger spirit started to prod at his shoulder like a child would. "Fess up Pitch, you helped us"

"I thought that was clear…"

"Ah ha! But why'd you do all that, why not just tell us, I mean North could have gotten the plant from them somehow without any fuss. And you wouldn't have to deal with them. And-and."

"Frost, I am _not _dealing with you today." Pitch finally snapped before rubbing at his forehead.

"H-hey Pitch, you okay?" Jack felt guilty, he should've noticed sooner. Was Pitch affected by the fight? Did he actually sacrifice something? "Pitch?"

"Please, Frost, those two were hardly a problem, I have other things to worry about." Pitch eyed the guilty looking Guardian warily before groaning. "I'm fine, Frost…" He glanced at the Nightmare beside _Frostbite_, shrugging, before he sighed and mentioned the violin.

An hour later and Jack had somehow convinced the older spirit to play the violin and was more or less hypnotised. Frostbite could only watch helplessly as the winter spirit pretty much fell asleep after a while, before being dragged along with her sisters to take care of the witches that caused her master grief.

Not that she didn't enjoy scaring them by almost stamping their life-forces out.

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><p>AN: *sigh* Dat feeling of Senpai noticed me ;L

Yes I'm talking about you Mugetsu, leaving like what, 13 reviews in a row? O.O Damn gurl!

Also Blue, YOU DO NOT SIMPLY SAY EXTERMINATE IN THE FACE OF A WHOVIAN *sonics you for no reason* yay Box ghost !

IDK why but it feels like any chapter I attempt now will be really low-quality... Currently trying to find some ideas without outright copying others... Anyways

Due to my mild block I'm returning to write my little Minecraft fic (don't worry, I'm not abandoning these bunnies). I have extra chapters ready to post here but now I'm wondering if I should post them or wait till I come back. I have like... 3 extra chapters ready. Yea, okay. Said chapters shall be powered by reviews! Muahahaha jkjk

Anyways, Frostbite is the rebellious teen that Pitch has to deal with, oh dear.

Yes, Pitch got what he got.

Yes he can play it like a baws.

I leave it to you to guess what songs inspired this XD

With that

Rubix and rabbits, signing out!

(If anyone can figure out what I turned everyone into in my Backup arc is when I post it... hehe)


	16. Before the Night begins

Pitch hated his brother. Really he did. The older was too good… for his own good. Too forgiving and caring. "I know it's been bad, but I think this job'll work, the place started up again so you can try." Pitch snorted, taking off his jacket as he settled into the chair in his 'office', it really wasn't, what with the doors, all the while mocking his brother in his head. He'd held up the newspaper and bothered him almost everyday about the job after he got back from his own job. Pitch hadn't done anything at all after his brother took him in. Honestly any other sane brother would have gotten sick of him by then and left him alone,kick him out, but no, his brother cared for him all the same, working twice as hard to provide for him and his own daughter. Pitch had practically become little Seraphina's permanent babysitter.

Most people, after the somewhat recent war, had stayed close to their families, rebuilding everything. There were those that knew how war could happen again, paranoid people, that continued joining the army, promising themselves that they'd never let a war like that happen ever again. His brother had been one of those people. Sure it had sounded heroic and all, hell, he even got to a rank of a General, but it wasn't without its consequences. Everyone thought Pitch didn't care in the slightest for his brother, and that was how he wanted it, but he DID listen when his brother went on happily about his life. The times Pitch was dragged to his brother's house, after he found him in some alleyway, he'd be forced to stay overnight. That meant hearing his sister-in-law go on and on when some neighbour questioned her husband's choice to stay in the army. All the while taking care of little Seraphina out of pure boredom. Valica had never truly nagged at him but he could tell he was useless in her eyes. The woman did love his brother, however he only acted the part of Seraphina's caretaker only because Seraphina deserved that much. He'd been able to stand Valica's glares, she would've been a perfectly nice sister-in-law but Pitch's attitude could make anyone snap, just fine until she was gone.

It'd been just another night out, Pitch dealing with old acquaintances and coming home late. He'd noticed immediately how there'd been no light from the hallway. Pitch had narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. With nothing to do, the man could be quite observant and he knew Seraphina didn't ask her parents to go to someone else's sleepover that day. With his past he immediately went for the knife drawer, brandishing one, ready for thieves. As if he'd ever let his brother surpass him in any sort of skill, he could kill anyone quickly if he wished. Checking through the entire house systematically, there really was no sign of Seraphina or her mother having returned earlier. It was a Saturday, that meant the child had probably been brought for her piano lessons. It was obvious they never came back. His brother was off somewhere on duty, he never paid attention to how the army worked anymore, but he remembered he could be called back rather easily, strange enough. Pitch had called him up almost immediately, _did he look like he cared if his brother was in some meeting?_

Needless to say, the family man had arrived before the sun had even risen. Pitch had to deal with the small town exploding with worry about the missing pair. Random neighbours coming over to comfort his brother, glaring at his lack of care, it was hardly amusing really, he could never sleep on the couch anymore with them crowding his brother on it. The worst part? They didn't know when to let up. He only decided to help his brother out after a month of stupidity, pulling the closest neighbour off, hissing at the man and everyone to leave. The brute had tried to hit him, his wife screaming at him before he broke the man's arm and shoved everyone out. Imbeciles. His brother was lucky he let him hug him.

Pitch growled, the stupid phone was _loud_, _who'd be calling at this time?! _"Hello? Helooooo?" _Why was a man acting like a 5-year-old? Calling at this hour? Oh._ It was a recording, the blinking red light showed that clearly. He clicked his tongue before pausing it, leaning back in his chair to get comfortable. The caller's voice was _annoying_. Where was he? Ah yes, his brother. The man took _two months _to recover from the shock and finally returned to his job. The way the neighbours gossiped about it, they might as well have painted it in neon on the highway. _The only reason the man was going back to work was to support his useless brother._ Pitch rolled his eyes, settling in finally, _that's what they all thought. _

The man jumped when there was a burst of static, _what the hell!? _"I wanted to re-"

"Oh shut up!" Pitch paused it again, this time looking for a delete button but it seemed broken. _Ugh. _He glared at the phone before opening the newspaper he'd brought with him back up, sneering at the circled job on the back pages. "Season's Greetings…" He'd never heard a worse name.

He flinched again when the stupid voice resumed. " I wanted to record a message for you; to help you get settled in on your first night." This time the pause button didn't work.

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><p>AN : Now, this isn't part of my backup arc but eh, I couldn't wait for this. I want to see other people from the fandom writing this prompt though, I'll put the link to the tumblr post of this in the next chapter, hopefully you guys will reblog and other writers might take it up!

Next chapter. Hehe.


	17. Night 1

**Warning: **Rated T for a couple of swear words, I know certain people are in danger of getting your phone thrown out the window by your parents if even the 's' word appears so I'm guessing the human equivalent of 'Frag' is enough to make it like the Ring and into the volcano.

Onto the chapter!

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><p>This person's voice was unnaturally annoying, he sounded like he'd be the sort of geek he would've picked on in school. "So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about. Uh, you'll do fine." Pitch snorted, <em>overwhelming? Really<em>? The man was extremely nervous for some odd reason, what, was this against some company rule? Pitch smirked a little, as childish as it sounded, he wanted to tattle if it was. "Uh, let's see, first there's an introductory greeting from the company that I'm supposed to read. Uh, it's kind of a legal thing, you know. Um-" Pitch groaned, why couldn't he shut the phone off? _Because he was too lazy to move, that's why. _He grunted a little, damn him. His family were never wrong when they said he was capable of succeeding his brother. But it was too much work. He yawned, _great, not even half an hour and he was already bored._ "-where fantasy and fun come to life." He snorted, these places and their mottos, always so corny it _hurt. Wait what!? _"Upon discovering that damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within 90 days, or as soon property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced." _Wait, but what was that he heard before? Wait, death!? Oh crap, looked like he really had to listen… _"Blah blah blah, now that might sound bad, I know," Pitch stared at the phone incredulously, okay maybe he was lucky he didn't have to deal with this sort of creep in school… "-characters here do get a bit quirky at night," _Quirky!? "-_but do I blame them? No. If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for twenty years and I never got a bath? I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too." _Irritable? At night? _"-remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and we need to show them a little respect, right? Okay." _Should I be worried? Cos I am. _From the passing glance he had of the characters, Pitch didn't think they'd been treated with respect lately. He swore he saw some handprints on the main one, that mark made it looks like they really hadn't been cleaned for a long time… _Wait, wander a bit!?_ "Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night. Uh...Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long. Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Slice of '87." Pitch flinched, _if the thing had a __**title**__… "_Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?" _The frontal lobe- the frontal lobe!? _Pitch bristled, like an alarmed cat, if you will. "Uh, now concerning your safety," _Oh so that word __**was **__in this man's vocabulary… well he had better get a better definition of it. _"They'll p-most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on. Now since that's against the rules here-" Pitch sat up, he thought he heard something!

He had no choice now, checking the cameras, eyeing the power levels warily, the ominous recording still playing. "Um, now, that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with crossbeams, wires, and animatronic devices, especially around the facial area. So, you could imagine how having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort...and death." _Oh this was a mistake if he ever made one._

Pitch was going to _kill_ his brother. "Y-Yeah, they don't tell you these things when you sign up." _Uh, no kidding. _" But hey, first day should be a breeze." _He was going to break the phone into pieces. _"I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night." _If he could survive it… _

"Why did I take this job?" Pitch groaned, seeing everything was as it should, staring at the three on the stage. He rubbed the back of his head and sighed before he noticed something up on the wall. A light blue cap with a black visor, the word "Nightguard" printed on but with a 'K' in front, clearly written by a child. He stared at it for a while before grabbing it, putting it on. He should've been repulsed by the thing, but something made him want to wear it. He couldn't help but give a small smile, if he was going to be mortally wounded tonight, he could act human for a few minutes.

A moan. His eyes snapped to the door immediately, feeling as if he could suddenly see better, hear better. Instinct told him to check the camera instead of poking his head out. _The fairy was missing. _"Oh," He swore as he changed through cameras, _where was she, where was she!? _She was smiling at the camera. At _him. _Standing beside the table with her hands placed lightly in front of her, standing on her tiptoes, wings spread as if floating. Craning her neck in a way where she looked down at him. _Oh what the hell. _She was smiling gently, like a mother would. As the strange grey line of static swept across the screen, it changed. She was grinning, he could see her teeth, bright and sparkly. But they weren't that clean when he'd passed by this morning. And the creep on the phone had told him they hadn't been washed in decades. Goosebumps everywhere, he could _not _question it anymore. This. Was. Bad.

_Bad._

Pitch half stared, half glared at the animatronic, his eyes widening after a second. _The others. _He made the decision to risk the blasted fairy being out of his view for a second to check on the other two, sighing in relief when the pair was still there. _Okay, back to the gir- _He had a heart attack when he couldn't see her immediately but, okay, she was there. Just a glitch. Just a glitch. And then it glitched again.

Static, all the cameras. _Static. Nothing. _He swore again, flipping through them all and looking up at both the doors, getting even more disturbed that he could not see outside at all. The cameras flickered back on and Pitch fumbled, almost dropping the thing as he switched back to the camera in the main room. _She wasn't there._ He checked the stage as well, nothing changed. _Thank the gods. _The relief was shortlived though, because the _fairy_ was _missing. You did not simply forget that. _

He flipped through all the cameras in a panic, stopping when she found her. Camera 4A. _She was right __**there. **__A corner away._

And that wasn't the worst part. Her mouth was agape, it looked like her _skin _was peeling off, melting off. And he could see her skeleton, or endo-skeleton. The teeth still glistened but the metal of the 'gums' were as dark as the inside of the skin that was being peeled off. Even with her lips gone he could still feel her _smiling. Oh gods, what was that!?_

Perched on her shoulder was a small little _thing, _a fairy. He would have assumed that it had the beak of a hummingbird. But he saw it was just the nose, the mouth underneath open wide like a child about to take a big bite out of a burger. Needle-like teeth gleamed as brightly as the large fairy's teeth, and the little one had both tiny hands stretched out, like a child begging an adult to hug her up. _What. The. Actual. Fuck._

The cameras fizzled out again and he almost leaped for the button, slamming his hand down on it and hitting the wall as the large door clanged shut. Pitch panted a bit, out of fear than anything before he gingerly reached out for the light. He almost screamed at the two now staring at him and was thankful when the light switched off again. _They were there. That was all he needed to know. He did __**not**__ want to see them._

Pitch checked the clock. Time flew fast when you were going to die apparently. Didn't know how he should have felt about that. Was time messed up here too? He listened to a soft tapping sound that faded out. _Was the fairy tapping the glass!? Was it going to break in or something!? _He eyed the glass warily, still checking the stage.

A good hour of pure paranoia passed with him jumping at sounds he swore he could only have imagined before the camera glitched. He doubted himself about _that_ way too much, however. The rabbit was gone. _Oh boy. _He'd opened the east door a while ago after he confirmed the fairy's position. _Great, now there were two. _He kept his eye on the rabbit, checking the fairy at the same time, with a morbid sort of curiosity. _Observing how you'll make your way over to kill me. How did today start again?_ He thought darkly, as the cameras failed again. He found the thing in some closet, hanging out with a broom. _Okay… strange… _He heard the sound of metal clanging and jumped again, it was too… the sounds were off, it was a sort of hollow. He'd realized the kitchen cameras had been shut down, it even said so that there was only audio though he didn't really know why, so he assumed that it was something in the kitchen. He confirmed it was the fairy a little later.

The cameras failed again, they were closing in. He could feel it. He closed the left one, the bunny had been closer, before making a turn to reach the other. Turning on the light on the left, he saw the bunny's shadow and sighed. He knew the fairy was behind the other door, he didn't think he could stand seeing her again. _Oh no. _The power. It was dangerously low. The doors were draining all the power! Biting his lip he checked the clock. He didn't think he could make it. "Why." He spat out, _why why why._ He glared at the set of newspaper with him, vowing to burn it if he made it out.

The clock chimed a few times and Pitch barely registered it. What was the use? Those things were already outside! _Clang_! The lights were gone. The doors were open. With nothing behind them. "What." It took him a few minutes before he had the guts to peek out, finding nothing. He couldn't really see much anyways, the entire place was dark. A small mechanical sound before a strange stomping sound and everything went quiet. Well, where was he supposed to go now? Were the things setting up some sort of ambush at the main door? Hell, if he could dodge them, he couldn't possibly pick the lock _that _fast. If he could find something to pick the lock with.

Well, that was convenient. He could hear keys, he didn't know if it was smart to attempt warning whoever had opened up the place, if those things got to the guy first, he'd have no chance and they'd know where he was. Hearing no scuffle he eventually made his way to the main room, staying on the opposite side of the room from the stage, still staring at the three characters. "… Are you going to stand there all day kid?"

"What?" He turned to see some old man in a light blue uniform glaring at him from the door. "Eh…"

"Grab your stuff and get out, if I find anything left behind its company property. You don't get any overtime money, kid." Pitch sniffed at the old man's tone before darting back to the office to grab his jacket and leaving, hearing the old man mutter. _The nerve._

Pitch knew he didn't imagine the little girl's voice when he was out the door however.

Looks like he was going for a second night.

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><p>AN: A lot of headcanons are available for you to choose from for why Mike ever stays more than one night, but I decided to make one for Pitch hehe.

Now here's a decision IDK how to make. This arc is NOT my pre-prepared arc and so it takes actual time to write. Should I just cut this here and use my prepared arc for now? If I DO end up using this arc instead my hiatus will be much longer. I'm still working on my minecraft fic (the first few chapters repulse me... I'll have to rewrite those after I update it...) as for those that are curious about said minecraft fic, it's called "World:Minecraftia" on Wattpad (I just realised, shameless self-advertising lol)

Okay I think that's it?

Yes, I suppose so. As for the lack of sass, AK and the others are taking a break as well, though half of us are still bursting into "Oh my gods 13blue XD" because of her review and just being distracted for an hour in school because of her reaction to the previous chapter hehe

Thank you Shamangirl for reviewing! Your little "Throw those two into a room" idea will happen :P

anyways

Rubix and rabbits, signing out!


	18. Wild

There was an odd jingling sound close to Jack's head and normally he would have been curious and listen. Today though, wasn't a good day for him. Growling he swatted at the source, eyes still shut and sighed when he heard one loud ring and clang as the thing hit the wall of the cave. He wondered briefly if the stupid thing was dead until he heard soft jingles again and growled low. He heard the thing stop and could picture the small creature freezing, before the rush of jingling sounds told him it was probably running away.

Jack curled in a little more, trying to go back to sleep but something was bugging him... oh. _Oh pineneedles._ That thing could have been a stray mini elf. If it had been the bigger sort it would have tried attacking him immediately. No it was a mini elf. So it was either a group of the noisy things were nearby... or they had a guardian with them. The teen scrambled up, bringing snow up as he ran for the cave's entrance and flew off. Great. What a perfect way to start the morning. He really liked that cave, one of the best he'd holed up in. He just _had_ to attack what had the chance of being a much older and stronger male's little minion. He hated everything.

The teen froze in midair, hearing something very large roar, the sound echoing throughout the mountain range. He swore and dove from the ground, using small movements in case anything looking for him from above wouldn't find him so easily. He walked into the denser parts of the forest and started relaxing. Hearing some leaves rustle, he stopped, letting his senses reach out. He could practically _see_ the heat radiating off the nearby animals. He shrugged, flying and landing on a tree's branches and waiting for an elk to pass by underneath him before he struck it with a surge of ice, freezing its heart and killing it. Climbing down it didn't take long before he was tearing into it.

Jack had taken a good chunk of it when he heard something, a low growl. _Oh, pine needles_. He leapt back and the elk he'd been feasting on exploded into smithereens. Turning he saw the giant standing a few metres away, panting like a mad bull. The older roared and Jack made a small squeak before darting into the air, realizing his mistake way too late.

Another strike of lightning flashed past him. _He should have stayed in the trees!_ He dived and spun, trying to dodge the shots. He was doing fine and got below the treeline but was shot at the last second, making him spin out of control. Landing heavily he heaved himself up, shaking his head to face the gigantic growling beast. He stayed low before darting around his opponent but didn't foresee something coming straight at him. It was so heavy it knocked him clear off his feet. Trying to get up, he failed and plopped back down, panting. He could see the blade-like protrusions on the tail and silently thanked the gods he hadn't been hit by _those_. He gave a last squeal as the beast clamped down on his neck and wing with a paw each and he roared, blasting ice and wiggling about. The paw shifted, making his weakened ice blast hit the trees nearby. He heard a grunt before was knocked out cold, tail lashing weakly at his opponent.

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><p>AN: Hello all, yes, some idea I got... I turned everyone into a kind of mystical being. It's kinda easy to figure out I suppose. I realize this is pretty short so... yea.

So this is what I decided to do. Imma scatter these arcs so there'll most likely be this and the Five nights going at the same time, whatever I can write first I suppose. Should I just post a chap every week or somethin? Im not good with keeping up with a schedule but I have this arc's chapters prepared.

Yipdee do, yipdee dee time to write my minecraft fi~

I think I'm drunk.

Shaman :Of course you were mentioned. Reviews power this thing!

Rubix and rabbits signing out!


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